As I struggle inelegantly on my crutches, toddlers, who have just discovered the wobbly freedom of their own two feet, whizz past me. People amble, stride, jog and just…walk. It is a gift they don’t know they have, and one I never considered until I began to lose it.
Alison Peebles is a leading Scottish actor who once gave an acclaimed performance as Lady Macbeth and in many others memorable roles. But that’s not the point. Alison Peebles has primary progressive MS which was first diagnosed 12 years ago, after a series of falls as a creeping numbness spread throughout her body. But maybe that’s not the point either. The point is that she is a vulnerable as all of us.
Thomas, Katie and Hanna are beautiful young performers, but it’s not important that they have healthy, flexible, reliable bodies. What’s important is that their minds and their emotions can be as unpredictable as Alison’s body.
My Shrinking Life is a confrontation between fundamental concepts in human life, between weakness and vanity, between choice and coercion, between movement and stasis, beginnings and ends.
Celebratory, irreverent and, at times, surreal, My Shrinking Life examines the emotional and physical journey we are all on as vulnerable, fragile people, diagnosed or not.
The 2nd play, The Monster in the Hall, is a low budget indie comedy musical about a girl on the verge of a nervous breakdown played out by four actors and a big fat motorbike which goes vrrooommm. Presented by the National Theatre of Scotland it will be playing at the Citizens Theatre, Glasgow, in a double-bill with Yellow Moon on the 8th September.
Duck Macatarsney cares for her biker dad whose MS is getting increasingly bad. Her Dad - Duke - is a spliff smoking (for medicinal reasons you understand), bike riding, heavy metal and horror movie loving, pizza eating widower who's brought up Duck since the death of her Mother in a crash. The two of them are just about surviving when one morning the Duke wakes up blind and the Duck hears that the Social Services are coming to take her away.
This is a wildly imaginative musical comedy about a teenager trying to protect her world from the terrifying prospect of change. It is performed with minimal props and no sets with the stripped-back production style creating an up-close intimacy with the audience. Writer David Greig really taps into the heart-breaking emotional highs and lows of the lives of young carers.
WINNER of BEST ENSEMBLE at The Stage Awards for Acting Excellence 2011.
“An imaginative synthesis of Beauty and the Beast, pop songs, heavy metal, and rapid-fire acting.”
The Independent ****
“Performed at breath-taking speed and simply fizzing with energy”
The Times ****
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