Episode 1: Vici Wreford-Sinnott, Punk Activist and Theatre-Maker

INTRO: Welcome to the Trailblazers Podcast series by Periplum, sharing the experiences of trailblazers living and working in the Tees Valley: the innovators, activists, workers and adventurers as told in their own words. Episode 1 Vici Wreford- Sinnott, Punk Activist and Theatre-Maker Claire (Interviewer) So I'm Claire, we’re here at the exhibition of trailblazing women at Kirkleatham Museum. And we've invited you in to talk a little bit about your life, and your trailblazing escapades. So could you tell us a bit about where you were born? Vici (Interviewee) Well, I was born in Hartlepool, although my family lived in County Durham and I grew up in the County Durham area, East Durham pit village of Shotton Colliery. Claire (Interviewer) And where do you live now? Vici (Interviewee) I live in Saltburn-by-the Sea, which isn't too far from Kirkleatham. Claire (Interviewer) And have you lived anywhere else? Vici (Interviewee) I have, yes. So when I was 18, I left the North East for London because I thought the streets were paved with punk. I lived there for eight years, and I lived in Kent where I studied theatre studies. I did my Drama degree. I lived in Edinburgh a very, very short time, and I've lived in the Republic of Ireland for four years, so there was a bit of moving around in the middle of my life so far, but happily settled in Saltburn, gosh, 23 years ago. Claire (Interviewer) You said ‘paved with punk’? Vici (Interviewee) [Laughs} The streets were paved with punk. Yeah. Obviously it comes from the fairy tale Dick Whittington, who thought the streets were paved with gold. Well, all I wanted at that age was punk. I'd lived in quite a sheltered village in the East Durham Coalfield, hadn't had much access to the arts, so we might have gone to the odd pantomime but when punk hit the world, I loved the theatre of punk. I loved the costumes. It was lovely to create an identity, but the thing that I loved most about punk: the music, the lyrics, and many disabled women were involved in punk. But it was the fact that it was the first time I realised you could ask big questions of the world, that you didn't have to believe everything as it was presented to you. You know, how we’re taught history, I began to appreciate, was told from a particular perspective, that things that we're taught as facts are not always facts. There's various perspectives and lenses, and that really interested me and punk gave me that. Claire (Interviewer) So can you tell me a bit more about when you were growing up, your family life? Vici (Interviewee) Yeah. So I grew up on a small farm just outside a Pit Village, as I said. So part of my family worked above the land, on the farm, and part of my family were coal miners, and worked under the land. The first seven years of my childhood I felt, you know… I've got very rose tinted spectacles, but it was lovely to grow up on a farm. I describe it often as idyllic. The first kind of seven years of my life felt like I had freedom, outdoor life. I think that was particular to our generation, you know, we made use of the outside world as our playground. But I was surrounded by animals: dogs, horses, cows. And, you know, that was wonderful. Our family was very connected to the village and the community. Things did change because there was a sudden death in our family at the age of seven, which changed all of our lives, really. And childhood continued, but it did have quite a big impact on us as a family. It was in the 70s and we didn't talk about things maybe as much as we should have. Adults tried to protect children. What ended up was there were a lot of secrets around. And we {laughs], in village life, secrets get retold in different ways and they filtered back to us as children. And so, yeah, that was quite challenging in lots of ways to navigate as a child. But I feel lucky that my family were, you know, very supportive of who we were as kids. And I expected when I became a punk - I think I was about 16 - and it wasn't at the beginning of punk because I'm not that old, but I attached myself to punk, and I expected my family to kind of be a bit freaked out by that, but they weren't. They loved the fact that I was finding an identity, and were kind of proud of this, you know, person that I was becoming, which was lovely. Claire (Interviewer) What was your first inspiration to become a punk? Vici (Interviewee) First inspirations… I think, so there was a band called Spear of Destiny, who I absolutely loved. They were, like, working class roots. The lyrics were like nothing I heard in the pop scene. New Model Army were another punk band who were really politically informed. And then there were amazing women like Poly Styrene. I just, I felt cos I immediately connected into it as well, it was available. It wasn't like, you know, if I was in love with a boy band, they would be completely inaccessible. Whereas punk, [laughs] punk was available. It was on my doorstep. There were local bands and we, you know, got involved with a band who were called No War. There was a band called Crucified by Christians, Angelic Upstarts. So there was a, they were around us, you know, it felt we were part of a, a vibrant, lively community. Claire (Interviewer) So what were you like at school? Vici (Interviewee) At school, yeah, I was a bit of a swot to begin with, {laughs], I took it very seriously, I seem to remember. I liked the challenge of school. I dunno, I just loved education, I loved learning, so…. In primary school, particularly, there wasn't a rebel in me at all really. And yeah, I was very tall. I was taller than everybody else. So anything that makes you stand out, you know, there can be unkindness around that. So I did experience a bit of bullying throughout school life just for that simple fact that I was born tall [laughs]. But also I was lucky enough to meet my best friend the day that I started school. And to this day, all these years later, we live back-to-back in Saltburn, which neither of us, you know, came from Saltburn, but that's where we've ended up. And so friendship was really, really important to me, and it's something I valued all my life. You know, the importance of a friendship, particularly female friendship. Claire (Interviewer) Yeah. I'm interested that you liked school and you worked hard, but you also wanted to be a punk. Vici (Interviewee) Yeah, yeah. Claire (Interviewer) Was that about the music or was it about the fashion, or was there one particular aspect of punk? Vici (Interviewee) Yeah. So it didn't come till I was, I was kind of leaving school, you know, until I was, I suppose. When did I start? 15, 16. I started experimenting with clothes so I think it was about trying to find a visual identity, which maybe had come from self-consciousness about my height and things that affect a little childlike brain, but [exclaims] just the music. Once I'd gone to a live gig, that was it. I was completely hooked. There was something about the experience of celebration. And it was, it was obviously a particular character of the culture, and there was aggression. I wasn't interested in the, the aggression or the violence of punk, that was definitely there. It was very much about the culture... I loved a costume, I definitely loved a costume, [laughs].you know? And so I made lots of clothes. There was a punk shop in Durham called Faze, and I just started creating clothes for that when I was 16. You know, not fashion design-informed, Punk-informed, DIY-informed. Actually DIY is a good - , yeah, that's been a thread throughout my life. And that's another thing that punk taught me. Do it yourself. Just get on. Make it happen. Do it. Whether that's fashion, music, whatever, meeting people and, later, theatre. Claire (Interviewer) That brings me to - can you recall your first memory of going to theatre? Vici (Interviewee) I mean, I do, I do remember pantomimes and seeing famous people on stage, and they didn't do a lot for me as a child. [laughs] I was unimpressed, unfortunately. And then there was another occasion. We went to see Chitty Chitty Bang Bang at the Sunderland Empire, and one of my siblings was traumatised by the kiddy catcher character, screamed the place down [laughs], had to be taken out, and I think that's the most vivid memory of that experience. So actually, there were things that I didn't quite get, but I didn't have a lot of exposure to theatre. And then, I think, it came later where there is one very specific moment where theatre changed me life. And that was when I'd gone to London looking for punk. We went to lots of underground clubs, and I had heard about this show called Metamorphosis, which Stephen Berkoff had adapted, obviously from Kafka. Tim Roth was in it, unknown at that time, and we went to see it. And it literally, physically, mentally had such an impact on me that an artistic experience could do that to a person. I ached to be able to do something like that. It was physical theatre. It was visually striking. I mean, it was just an incredible experience. And as I've gone on through theatre, I've maybe changed my views on Berkoff. You know, once I understood about, and I learned about feminism, women's theatre, I would read Berkoff then with quite a different lens. But [laughs] as an introduction to theatre, it was very punk in its politics, I suppose. And from that moment I wanted to do theatre, and I didn't doubt that I could get involved in it in some way. So even though I'd come from quite a working class, regionalised, you know, from the North. I'd seen that piece of theatre just made me think, that's what I want to do. That's what I'm going to do. So at that point, when I was in London I put myself through a drama A-level, and that was my route to finding how I could get involved with theatre. I think that I started expressing myself artistically. I mean, I'd gone to London, I'd got a job as a nanny looking after kids, because it got me a flat. I was able to bring my best friend with me. We shared the flat. Once I decided that I wanted to get involved in theatre, then fringe theatre was, was widely available. I went to lots of alternative comedy. That was an emerging art form at the time, and I just was drawn to political comedians, feminist comedians, saw Jo Brand lots of times. And was just very interested in how people told their stories, how they made it relevant to them, rather than what my perception of theatre at that time was. You know, I hadn't done my training at that point, so I thought of theatre in very Shakespearean or classic terms or…alternatively, middle class farces. Not that I’d ever seen one. I just had this impression that that's what dominant theatre was. And so I think it was just those ways of telling stories that had punch, had power, that seemed really relevant and contemporary. So yeah, I started to see lots of fringe theatre, as I said. Saw Complicite, went to Donmar to see them. Another company who completely blew my mind. Not a route I have pursued, but just in terms of just the enjoyment of the skill that that they bring. So yeah, at that time, I think I just made the most of what was in London, on the doorstep. I certainly couldn't have accessed fringe theatre had I stayed in my pit village. And so all of those things informed and influenced me. And this is all... I'm 18, 19. Yeah. You know, I'm still a young person, but what punk gave me was elements of feminism. And even though I didn't fully get that, I mean, I hadn't learned any theory about it or hadn't had conversations necessarily about it. But once I started doing my A-level and then went on to do my degree, obviously the world of theatre opened up and I learned a lot about narratives, you know, and our national narrative and how deceitful that is, how we're taught about history and, you know, the colonial past. Imperialism. Anyway. Yeah. So [laughs] I could go off on a really big political [laughs] rant there, but I won't. But yeah, I think they’re the sort of things that were informing me at that time. I was particularly drawn to the theatre that women's groups were making. Claire (Interviewer) So I guess, big question isn’t it, why do you think it's important to make theatre now? Vici (Interviewee) Well, once I had gone through my training, the first thing that I did when I graduated was to come back North. I knew I wanted to come home, by that point, and so I'd been in the South for eight years, but I knew that I wanted to make theatre that was relevant to where I was from, and the identity that I had, you know, evolved into: my knowledge of women's theatre and feminism. Socialism was really important to me at that time, and still is - all guiding lights continuously. But I think that theatre’s important because it is a live interaction with audiences and audiences are always what I think about first when I make a piece of theatre, is: what are they going to get from it? What are they going to take away from it? And what, as a theatre maker, what do I want to give? And so I think in an era of really challenging narratives that are put out in the media and by successive governments, and the fact that we, you know, in terms of minoritised communities, whether that's disability, race and ethnicity, age, sexuality, we're having to fight continually to share these stories. They're much less resourced. They're always, you know, in, in small-scale studio or still in kind of fringe theatre predominantly. And I think quite often when what I call dominant theatre takes those stories on, they they are mis-told quite often because they're not authentically told. So for me, it feels vital, and I, as someone from the disability community, I have continually made work over the last 30 years that has felt politically urgent, because of the way that disability is misrepresented. We have a tacit understanding in our societal psyche that disability is bad, that it's tragic, that it's a drain on resources, that people are burdens. And sadly, those stories persist. And we're seeing them again with our current government. You know, lots of us have thought, well, the change of government, we're going to get a Labour government, there's going to be a shift in how disability is considered and represented publicly. And actually it's not, it hasn't changed. And there are really worrying messages about disabled people as drains on society. And so for me, it's really important that there are platforms for disabled people to tell stories through our own lens, through our own experience. And I firmly believe that if we're not including the stories of disabled people, we're not telling the truth about who we are as a society. And for me, that's what theatre’s about. It's about being honest about who we are, where humanity is. And so for me, that is essentially political. My existence as a disabled woman feels political. When you think about some of the oppressive policies that exist around lack of support for disabled people and a grotesque misunderstanding and misrepresentation. Lots of disabled people are living very fulfilled, happy, thorough lives. The main thing that is disabling in our lives is actually society's attitudes towards us, and the barriers and obstacles that exist in our lives. So it feels vital politically vital, to make theatre for me at the moment. Claire (Interviewer) Yeah. We talked about who inspired you when you saw pieces when you were younger, but have there been any people who've inspired you on your artistic journey along the way, any particular people? Vici (Interviewee) Absolutely. There are people whose artwork, in a variety of forms have inspired me, have made me want to, to make work. Certainly, the playwright Carol Churchill would be one of those people who's been able to reinvent writing consistently, and although quite often her work takes place in conventional and dominant theatre settings, I think the way that she challenges form and narrative is exquisite. And so she's been quite an influence. I'm always kind of influenced by cabaret culture as well. So disability cabaret from its early days. Very political. Again, it would take place in community centres or leisure centres because theatres wouldn't book disabled artists, but we were creating a community. So there will have been people like Barbara Lisiki, who, there was a television drama made about her: ‘When Barbara met Alan’, which Jack Thorne wrote a couple of years ago now. But her story is very interesting. She was a very influential woman. Kate O’Reilly is a writer, theatre maker, and now feature film maker - Hollywood called. But her work has got such integrity and she gives it such thought. And there's lots more people. Katherine Araniello, who is no longer with us, was a live art performance and really pushed the boat in terms of, gosh, that's unexpected. That is not how I expect to see a disabled person in a public space. And then also as a woman, you know, she's one of my contemporaries, but who I look up to, Dolly Sen. And she does big outdoor work, she does tiny, discreet works. Again, she's somebody who challenges the narrative. But 2 or 3 years ago she sectioned the DWP [Department of Works and Pensions]. So herself and some other performers went to the DWP [Department of Works and Pensions] with thermometers dressed as doctors and sectioned it, basically, which is a big political event. Not very widely reported, strangely, but [laughs] you know… And so I love people who are playful in their work as well. I like people who subvert and surprise. Claire (Interviewer) Can you describe why you were driven to become a disabled arts activist? Vici (Interviewee) I didn't have a choice. That's the first thing I would say about it. When I first graduated and I came back North, I set up a feminist theatre company, one of the first in the North East, Cirque des Femmes, we were called, which was not very North-Eastern, but I must have been feeling exotic that day - gave it a French name [laughs]. So I think, would I have been about 24 at this time, 23, 24, and I realised there were no plays with characters like me or my friends, my disabled friends, in them. So if I wanted to make them, this is where DIY, the thread of DIY from punk comes back in: had to make it ourselves. And so yeah, set up a theatre company to do that and then realised, okay, so we're making work that's relevant to us, but nobody understands it or wants to book it, or they think it's a risk because it's about disability. And so that's where activism comes in. It's almost by default. You kind of learn the art of persuasion very early as a disabled artist. And sometimes that art of persuasion is reasonable and rational. Sometimes it's fierce and shouty and ranty [laughs] you know, at injustice. But I'm I think that, my very earliest days of making theatre. I realised I had to be an activist, an advocate and a campaigner. And when you're making theatre that relates to your life, if you're from one of the minoritised communities, it's with you 24/7. It doesn't switch off. So any of the discrimination that you experience is 24/7. It's not just in the theatre-making day, whatever that looks like. And so there's a cumulative effect of that. And I think it's disappointing when you arrive in the arts where you think it's full of socialists and liberals and open-minded people to discover the structures within it actually are quite restrictive. And because we're talking about a pluralistic society, it's grotesquely unfair that not all the stories are told, and that we do get this persistent, single narrative that's almost…monotone. You know, it's as if we live in a monoculture. I think that we're still trying to tell that story. And that that just isn't who we are as a society. So activism became really important in different ways. Some of it’s just about navigating a day. You have to be an activist just to get through the day. And then other times it's about the bigger stuff, the bigger picture, and making sure that Theatre Practitioners are valued on an equal footing with everyone else, but because we're an underestimated community, people have assumptions and presumptions. You know, you're always having to challenge that. Claire (Interviewer) Can you describe your disability? Vici (Interviewee) That's a very interesting question. So in my world, it's not possible for a person to have a disability. We have a condition or an impairment. The disabling factor in our lives is the external world. And this is known as the social model of disability. So very happy to talk about what my conditions are, the mental health condition. I have some physical conditions that affect my mobility, but although they can be difficult to live with, they're not the disabling factor in my life. It's the fact that people have opinions of me that they make based on my physical characteristics or my, you know… And so that's one of the biggest shifts of learning for me, actually, because I grew up in the world that thought of the medical model of disability, which tends to focus on an individual's condition or clinical diagnosis, and what that does is it creates a list of things a person can't do. Whereas if you think about the social model of disability, well, if we adapt the world, if we adjust the world and we provide, whether it's, you know, as simple as lifts and ramps or if it's ‘let's change people's attitudes, let’s educate people’, then that's how we reduce the disabling factor that disabled people experience. So we do have to make the world fit. It's not about making us fit the world. And so yeah, in terms of disability for me that's very much an external experience of the world. Claire (Interviewer) So in your career, what have been the biggest breakthrough moments, do you think for disabled arts? Vici (Interviewee) So things that I particularly have experienced, I mentioned that I worked in the Republic of Ireland for four years, so I'd experience disability arts here, before I’d gone there. I had a national remit there to promote disabled artists and disability equality and culture, and I felt that Ireland was much more open to that. Now, although I'm not saying it was easy for disabled artists - it wasn't - but there were venues who got the fact that the work was avant garde or it was… it… they were new narratives and they were valued at that level. There wasn't the same kind of level of underestimation in the arts. Again, I have to stress, politically, it was as difficult to be a disabled person in Ireland. But just in terms of the arts, there was an openness to see radical work. So when I was in Ireland, I had...I directed two of the first pieces of disabled-led theatre in the Republic - one of which won a Met Eireann Award - and the fact that they were supported in mainstream theatre, so-called mainstream theatres, and were award-winning, it made me realise that there was a gap in what was happening in the rest of the UK. And so for me, the support that we got to make those two pieces of theatre by, you know, Irish disabled theatre-makers was incredible. And that was a light bulb moment. I had been in Ireland for four years and came back to the North East, and I got a job with a regional remit here. But it was because I wanted to come home again and I had a little boy at this point and he was due to start school, so we knew our lives were going to be back here at home in the North East. But then I brought that breakthrough light bulb moment back here with me. And so I think in the job that I got, where I had that regional remit, I was able to create opportunities. We held one of the first disability arts festivals that was right across venues across the North East, and that was a big moment, and it took a lot of persuasion. But we did get organisations like The Sage Gateshead, as they were then, Glasshouse International Centre for Music now. You know, they did get what we were doing, and they brought us in to do lots of work in there, they gave us great big spaces. They'd have big events on, with 5,000 people waiting to see a show, and we‘d do lots of promenade work through them with disabled actors, learning-disabled performers. And it made people ask questions, you know, so I think that gave us a confidence to do big work, to have big ambitions. The passing of the legislation in 1995, the first Disability Discrimination Act, a lot of people in the arts had worked towards that - one of the first protective pieces of legislation for disabled people. So it took a good ten years for it to become integrated, even into the arts. And it was a struggle ‘cos nobody actually polices the Disability Discrimination Act or the Equality Act other than the people that are affected by it. You know, there's no police force out there checking we’re all alright. [laughs]. But yeah… And then I think that the Paralympic Games in 2012 had an impact in that Channel 4 for the first time screened the Paralympic Games. It was here in the UK, so that had an impact. The messaging around the Paralympic Games wasn't brilliant and they weren't listening to disabled people. They pitched disabled people as superhumans, which is really unhelpful. It's really unhelpful ‘cos even the most brilliant athletes have done it by achievement. You know, they've worked hard and they've given their life to their sport. However, it was given a profile that did change, and even from those games, some of those disabled athletes are… they’re still on television. You know, it's a more normal thing to see people on panel shows, on game shows, in dramas, and I do think that was a turning point in televisual representation of disability. Claire (Interviewer) You spoke a bit earlier about now, you know, what are the obstacles that are still remaining at this point in time? Vici (Interviewee) I mean, unfortunately, I think that the attitudinal bias, you know, we've got centuries of the myths around disability, successive societies have always tried to distance themselves from what they say is imperfect or defective human beings. Actually, to go back to the Olympics, the Olympian ideal is perfection, and we're living with that as our beauty standards. That still dictates society's expectations. The beauty standards that we have today come from those Olympic ideals of perfection. They definitely do in terms of what a normal or exceptional body is - and mind. And so I think, unfortunately, that’s so embedded in how we think about disability as defective, as a defective model as a human being, you know, there's 2,000 years of that sort of thought. Lots of disabled artists, academics, activists are trying to shift that thought. And we know we are succeeding in moving thought on. But I think societally we do… when we think of disabled people, we forget that it's our grandmother, our uncle, our sister, our partner. You know, disability’s not something separate that happens to people in, in special centres or hospitals. It's in our everyday lives. And actually, most of us will become disabled as we age. It's just because people fear it, I think, and misunderstand it, that we aren't a more accessible and open world. And then in terms of being an artist, I think that we have benefited. Arts Council have prioritised minoritised communities from time to time. I do think that’s shifting again, I think that post the lockdowns, the arts is really struggling to recover. So they're more risk averse. They're not going to programme theatre work that they think they're not going to get a big audience, and usually disability’s first on that list, ‘cos of the perception that it's a tragedy, it's going to be an awful, miserable story. [laughs] And here we all are - punks living amazing lives with brilliant stories to tell, so it's difficult to get a balance there. So I think we're still fighting. We're still campaigning to be visible and convince people that we've got a story worth telling. Claire (Interviewer) Who have been your fellow travelers on your journey of arts activism? Vici (Interviewee) Gosh, so many people. So many people. I am very much a collectives, community-type person. I'm not an individualist and I really believe in the strength of community. So I've always been connected to the disability arts community. So people that I would have met early on would have been artists like Julie McNamara, who today is a very influential powerhouse of theatre and has remained, you know, an ally and co-conspirator. People like Colin Hambrook, who has led the biggest journal of disability theatre, captures disability arts in all its forms, who is a constant friend and supporter who, you know, I've known for 30 years. I think we think of ourselves as subversives. We've been on the streets with our activism, we've been in cabaret culture, and I think that being tricksters and mischief makers gives us strength. So there's other people like Liz Carr, who I've known for a long time, who people might know from BBC Silent Witness. She's a very brilliant speaker on the conversations at the moment about assisted dying, and that's a very dangerous subject for disabled people. And she's so eloquent on that. She's a brilliant campaigner. There are contemporary people in the North East. So with Disconsortia we're a bunch of disconcerted disabled artists [laughs]. And, you know, when pandemic hit, you know, we got together really quickly. We could see what the problems were going to be. We campaigned to the Arts Council, who, in fairness to them, responded immediately. And we got them to include specific funding for disabled people, because we knew that disabled people were going to be affected significantly and for much longer than many other artists would be. And so, there would be artists in that group, like there's Lisette Auton, Bex Bowsher, who is an incredible director, Beccy Owen, musician, singer and enchantress [laughs] with… you know, she does pop up choirs all over the region for people's mental health. She’s an incredible artist. And then there's people we’ve loved and lost who were comrades and companions, people like Geof Armstrong, who was from Newcastle, who really was in at the beginning of the disability arts movement, was one of the founders of that as a, even as a concept and went on throughout his life to champion it, and he formed the National Disability Arts Forum. Hartlepool-born and bred singer Karen Sheadar, who was with the punk band called The Fugertivs, and then her own, the Karen Sheadar Band, has written loads of anthems, lots of music that I think about connected to the disability arts movement - comes from her. And singer-songwriters like Ian Stanton, Johnny Crescendo. There's a lot of people, you know, that have made the disability arts movement. At the moment, the people that I'm surrounded by are women like Bex Bowsher, who is an incredible Dramaturg and Director, but just an incredible, emotionally intelligent, political person. She's a brilliant person to spend time with. And Steph Robson, who is a woman who campaigns around dwarfism and makes podcasts in Sunderland. Another brilliant person to spend time with. So there's a massive list. I think, you know, if we started to talk at great length about members of our community, I think people would be shocked at the scale and the number of disabled artists. But of course, there are 16 million disabled people in this country, which is 25% of the population. So it's not unsurprising to me. But there are legends out there, legends who are making incredible work in difficult circumstances. Claire (Interviewer) Can you describe your proudest moments as an artist? Or maybe one proudest moment. Vici (Interviewee) One proudest moment. Claire (Interviewer) Yeah Vici (Interviewee) I think at the moment, and, and artists always reference their current work [laughs], but I think that, I am working on something at the moment, my own show, which in a way is reflective of my career in the arts as a disabled artist. And I've involved a lot of older disabled women in this work. So although it's a solo show, that I'm touring, the research that I've done created lots of opportunities for disabled women to take part in writing activities, to write their own monologues. And again, that just is my instinct for collectivism and community. And so I think the questions the play that I'm working on at the moment ask are relevant to my community and our generation, and so I do feel proud of that. It's a disabled women-led company who's creating the work. We're all really quite radical. We're having a blast together, which is really important. You know, when I'm in an artistic space, I want to celebrate with the people that I'm working with. I want it to be productive and gorgeous. And [laughs], and it feels like that. We've made it fully accessible for everybody involved. We've thought about everybody's individual needs and made that happen, which traditional theatre doesn't do. I'm proud of that. I'm proud of that model of working. Claire (Interviewer) What's the title of the play? Vici (Interviewee) Unruly. And we are all unruly women. [laughs]. Claire (Interviewer) And also, I guess maybe one proud moment as an activist? Vici (Interviewee) As an activist, I think bringing together disabled people in the pandemic. We created an online community and we took part in lots of awareness-raising. But one afternoon, when Twitter was still a credible thing - it is no longer - , but when it was, we developed a campaign and we flooded Twitter with 20,000 tweets from all kinds of allies, disabled artists, and it felt fierce and it felt like a roar of presence that we were here, we were visible. And actually during that time, we had contact with people we would never have reached. We would never have been able to connect with in the arts because they would have been too removed from us. But, I think within the whole movement, that visibility that we brought during one of the most challenging times in recent history. Claire (Interviewer) How do you feel that you've blazed a trail for other artists and writers? Vici (Interviewee) It's not a natural way that I would describe myself. It's for other people to say. But I am aware that the work that I've done has been innovative. And it hasn't come just from my head. It's come from, you know, my community, from collectives. I think that I feel a responsibility to less heard voices and because I happen to be quite a confident person, although, you know, anxiety sometimes removes that from me, but when I can speak publicly, I do - I speak out. And I think that I am an effective campaigner, and that means that the work that I do, I always build in opportunities for other people: commissions for disabled artists, platforms for disabled artists so that we are visible and that we remain visible in politically urgent times. Claire (Interviewer) So when you have spoken as an activist, was that a quite a tricky journey for you to speak in public? Vici (Interviewee) Definitely. I mean, initially that would not have been my comfort zone, but going back to early days, even though - big, brash, punk - actually public speaking was not [laughs] at that stage in my life, not something I was naturally drawn to… I think that once I had gone through a four year drama degree, then you learn how to mask, perform [laughs]. you know, there's some techniques that you can draw on to be able to speak publicly, I think, and obviously it's, you know, it's not all about speaking loud on platforms, some of those conversations happen behind closed doors. Which again, you know, I, with a group of other disabled artists, we formed an alliance and we went directly to DCMS [UK Government Department for Culture, Media and Sport], to discuss and raise awareness and educate. And so, you know that that took a lot of confidence and bravery, you know, and we got that from each other, by being together. But I think that you think about the risks that can pose. Does that mean that I won't get funding? Does that mean that people will think, ooo, she's a troublemaker, you know, and it's a fine balance. And so I think that's why I use that phrase ‘the art of persuasion’. We kind of have to read the codes of the spaces that we're in, and sometimes tailor how we deliver things to those spaces to try and have the most impact. And although I would rather be able to be radical all of the time, people will switch off. And so, you know, thinking about how we communicate, what we need and want is important. Claire (Interviewer) It's a tricky one, what advice would you give to your younger self? Vici (Interviewee) It's something I've been thinking about because, you know, I'm coming to an age where I don't know how much longer I'm going to be working or, you know, I've got to work till I die. [laughs] But that's in terms of, you know, financial preparedness of the artist: none. [laughs] But in terms of, you know, realistically, I've been thinking a lot about my younger self as I kind of prepare for the next stages of my career and probably I won't be working as hard as I've always worked, although I do need to keep working. It's things like, you know, believe in yourself a bit more, cos to this day I have self-doubt in the work that I’m making. Despite outward appearances of confidence, I think artists often feel like they're imposters, especially if you're from my background. And so I would be just encouraging, and I'd also probably advise myself to take things a little bit more slowly and not think that I have to do everything today, which is, is difficult when you're a freelancer, you know, you say yes to so many things, and it's a privilege to be able to do that. But then also if you're fighting a fight, it is difficult. And so I think I probably would tell myself a bit more about self-care and how to balance things a little bit better, possibly in terms of activism, personal labour, emotional cost, and then the joy of, you know, making work. Claire (Interviewer) I've got one more question really, but have you been inspired by any other trailblazers? Vici (Interviewee) I think there are people like Jude Kelly, who is, is an artist, you know, began as a theatre director and is now the director of the WOW Festival - Women of the World. And I think that she genuinely is a trailblazer for women globally in terms of what she has created the space for, and continues to direct amazing festivals that involve the least heard voices of women around the world, that highlight abuses of women in other countries and here. And she does it with such style and intelligence. And yeah, so I think that that she definitely would be somebody that I would look to as an incredible force of change. And then there are other people who I have mentioned. Liz Carr is somebody, who, outside of her work as an artist, her work as an activist, and what she has done in terms of changing understanding around disability is really significant. Although she's now a public figure, in the public eye - she's been in, you know, Hollywood films and she's still very much a grassroots activist. She's still on the campaign lines, and she speaks with great eloquence and confidence on news programmes and really makes the world think about disability in a different way. There are lots of people that I could mention. There are trailblazers who live extraordinary, ordinary lives. A woman that I knew who had lived in institutions for 60 years. She was 80 when I met her. She lived in institutions because she was caught swearing in the street when she was younger. People forgot why she was in the institution, and so her whole life had become institutionalised. However, at 80, she got the keys to her first ever flat. Lived independently, you know, for the rest of the life that she had. She was a trailblazer to me. And I think that people living lives that have been dictated by other people, but who survived them with grace and joy and when she was living independently, she worked with other artists. She taught herself to read and write because nobody ever thought she'd need that. She's a trailblazer for me as well. So…there are people living different kinds of lives who bring about change, and it's important that we notice all of them. Claire (Interviewer) Is there anything else, Vici, that you'd like to add to this interview? Vici (Interviewee) Erm… Bring on the revolution. OUTRO: Thank you for listening to Periplum’s Trailblazers Podcasts funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. To listen to more of the series, and follow our projects visit our website at periplumheritage.com