Jackie Hagan: This Is Not A Safe Space *
Benefit cuts are hitting disabled people the hardest. Half of people in poverty are disabled or live with a disabled person. The future looks grim, so how can we get people to sit up, listen and care and not keel over with empathy-fatigue? Jackie Hagan’s way has been to make a new solo show that features the real voices of proper skint disabled people who she’s got to know in and around Manchester.
Jackie has conducted 43 interviews with people living on the fringes and the spaces in between. They are not sob stories, they are fully rounded lives full of the spiky humour and the complicated weirdness of being human. Jackie weaves these narratives together with poetry and anecdotes, celebrating the weird, the wonky, the unruly, and the resilient.
Expect audience interaction, DIY puppetry, poetic comedy, comedic poetry, a massive game of metaphorical ‘Kerplunk’ centre stage, and one underclass amputee steering the show.
‘a luminous storyteller… Her direct, honest and optimistic style makes her instantly likeable’ Upstaged Manchester on Jackie Hagan.
‘…above all there is the fierce optimism and dogged determination to turn tragedy into something quirkily, crazily beautiful.’ Sabotage Reviews on Jackie Hagan.
‘Jackie is not here to tell us sob stories that give us “empathy-fatigue”. She is here, in a brazen and brightly coloured burst of energy, to share truths, to make us think – and to make us laugh, too.’ Theatre Weekly.
‘Whilst still avoiding ‘pity porn’ or empathy fatigue, This Not a Safe Space sensitively addresses the harsh reality of navigating our modern social security system.’ Disability Arts Online.
‘It made me cry – and it made me feel PROUD of my scars and my identity and my people.’ Audience Feedback
Pay What You Can Afford.
Doors open 7.30pm, show starts 8pm.
