Georgie Steele’s And I’ll Blow Your House Down is an award-winning play opening soon at Brighton Fringe.
It is an interactive storytelling and clowning show campaigning for change for unpaid carers and families with disabilities. Georgie calls for action to provide better support for the millions of unpaid carers in the UK by creating a new National Carers Strategy.
Where: Squeak at the Rotunda Theatre (and tour to other festivals including Camden in August)
When: 16-18 May, 30 May-1 Jun, plus workshops 17 & 31 May
Ticket link: www.georgiestory.com
Georgie tells us more about the show and her experience below.
What’s the best thing about bringing your show to Brighton Fringe?
It’s the people! Everyone is friendly, performers make connections and support each other, the atmosphere is alive and accessible.
At Brighton Fringe I get to meet, perform for, interact with and see shows by such a great range of other people.
There’s a real feeling of freedom for performers to try out new ideas, and it also feels connected because the venues are within walking or easy travel distance.
All this and the seaside as well.
Can you tell us a bit about And I’ll Blow Your House Down?
When our sons were given a life-changing medical diagnosis, it felt like the Big Bad Wolf had blown our house down. But as we tried to rebuild our lives, I started to wonder who or what was the Biggest Baddest Wolf?
Was it Nye and Laurie’s disability, or was it the systems that society was constructing around them?In response to the absurdity of our family experiences of these systems and institutions, I began developing ‘And I’ll Blow Your House Down’.
I definitely didn’t want to make a misery memoir. My aim was (and is!) to create a playful, interactive show that invites us all to consider what kind of society we want to build for ourselves.
The stories of carers are starting to be heard. What was your involvement in this area before the show?
I’ve been an unpaid carer for nineteen years for my two sons who both have Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, during which we’ve experienced the full range of society’s reactions to disability, and the shocking lack of support for carers.
Being a carer involves so many kinds of work, from preparing documents for court hearings, to filling in 40-page application forms for benefits and grants, to trying to find paid carers to employ, as well as all the practical, physical and emotional aspects of care. There hasn’t been much sleep!
I’m so glad that Kate Garraway and other public figures and journalists have begun to talk about, listen to, and publicise the stories of carers. I feel optimistic about change, and I hope my show can contribute to that.
What’s been your favourite experience at the fringe?
It’s been meeting other carers and members of the public after my show who said, “You told our story! I felt heard. Thanks so much”, and “I had no idea it was like that”.
Also, people who hadn’t had experience of caring or disability said that they recognised many of the issues in the show, like society’s over-emphasis on rigid bureaucracy at the cost of people’s individual needs.
I have to add, it was amazing seeing on social media that I’d won the Brighton Fringe Legal and General Award for Inclusion last year – I couldn’t go to the awards ceremony because of needing to be at home to do my sons’ care, and I had just been assisting one of them with having dinner when I saw the announcement on my phone.
It felt like such a vindication of what I was trying to say about being a carer, right in the middle of me actually being one.
What’s next for the show?
I’m very excited that thanks to my crowdfunding supporters, I’ll be performing the show, and giving some true-life storytelling workshops, at Barnstaple Fringe TheatreFest, Tunbridge Wells Fringe and Camden Fringe over the summer.
After that, I hope to gather funding for a rural tour of a more accessible version of the show, hopefully with sign language interpretation and autism-friendly performances.