Comedian Mark Watson shares his experience of performing stand-ups online and what it taught him about disabled audiences’ access to the arts.
If you have disabled friends or family, you will likely have heard them say many times over the past 18 months that the losses we have all suffered – life being confined to a tiny square area, most of its treats no longer within reach, a heightened sense of isolation and helplessness – merely reflect what it’s been like in their skin for as long as they can remember. For millions of people in this country, lockdown is a constant, not a regrettable phase to be moved on from as soon as circumstances change.
This was a humbling and valuable lesson for those of us who have always had society arranged pretty much the way we wanted it, and many of us in my own field of entertainment tried to put the implications of the lesson into practice.
We found ways of staging shows on Zoom, or sometimes more unwieldy platforms (I performed one virtual show on Microsoft Teams in which only one of the 50-strong audience was visible on screen; I had to perform 45 minutes of stand-up to this one man’s face, like someone doing a gig stuck in a lift)... Keep reading on The Independent.
If you have disabled friends or family, you will likely have heard them say many times over the past 18 months that the losses we have all suffered – life being confined to a tiny square area, most of its treats no longer within reach, a heightened sense of isolation and helplessness – merely reflect what it’s been like in their skin for as long as they can remember. For millions of people in this country, lockdown is a constant, not a regrettable phase to be moved on from as soon as circumstances change.
This was a humbling and valuable lesson for those of us who have always had society arranged pretty much the way we wanted it, and many of us in my own field of entertainment tried to put the implications of the lesson into practice.
We found ways of staging shows on Zoom, or sometimes more unwieldy platforms (I performed one virtual show on Microsoft Teams in which only one of the 50-strong audience was visible on screen; I had to perform 45 minutes of stand-up to this one man’s face, like someone doing a gig stuck in a lift)... Keep reading on The Independent.