Fantastic Blueprint Fringe Festival at the Queen’s Theatre-part 2.

Havering campaigner and activist Ruth Kettle-Frisby today shares her review on the Blueprint Fringe Festival held at the Queen’s Theatre
Open The Front Door is a collection of three pieces of digital theatre that was shared with the audience remotely in the end. This actually made for a heightened awareness of the need for accessible cultural opportunities, I thought. Within each pieceembedded captions are made visible to all, which feels inclusive and normalising, and socially marginalised and misunderstood experiences are shared with exquisite creativity, as well as arresting candour.

The Origin of Carmen Power is an autobiographical story that is presented in the style of an interactive game, compellingly broken up into vibrant clicks, giving people the opportunity to take this thought-provoking journey at their own pace. With a slightly Jaqueline Wilson-esque feel, eloquently charming Carmen talks openly about her childhood experiences of having brain cancer from the recesses of her extensive imagination. She discovers that the unplanned route that she was forced to take through her formative years was not as impervious to hope, comfort and artistry as it seemed. 

In playfully poetic tones, she documents some hardcore growing-up along a self-created path, constructed out of sheer necessity – on the go – with no instruction manual. The narrative is structured with all manner of mythical beings (including an obligatory smattering of essential unicorn facts), and she is accompanied by Toby who was diagnosed with blood cancer at 19 and struggles to appreciate his superhuman status.

Fantasy and positivity lay the foundations for profound alternative narratives. Imaginary worlds begin to open up for Toby, who begins to learn medically masqueraded truth that he isn’t alone, and the audience is invited to rethink well-trodden footprints into which we sleepwalk – trance-like –when we make culturally-accepted assumptions and express ready-made emotional reactions to the experiences of others. In this play, we get a gentle taste of the isolating impact these narratives can have, along with the confidence to find a bit more magic within ourselves.

Humetheus and the Quest for the Bronze Cloak, by artist Hugh Maylon and Steve Sowden is a complex and impressive work for its humble running time. Set on a derelict pier in the aerially captured shape of a Viking ship, this compelling digital performance uses myth and legend to elevate the inner lives of people living disabled and neurodivergent experiences – in a society that actively oppresses disabled people – to epically gripping proportions.

It provides moving insight into the politically-enforced and maintained experiences of powerlessness in an ableist society; the enforced heroism involved in taking on the kraken of Conservative ideology that first traumatises, and then makes a virtue of repressing this trauma.

Accompanied by faint screaming and rhythmic arcade sounds building into melodies with nightmarish qualities, it immerses the audience in multisensory cacophonous merry-go-round of creative imagery, coping mechanisms and powerful introspections. It’s a powerful performance that reveals some of the deeper, existential impacts of austerity that erode people’slives, all the way down to their sense of self and belonging; an important, treacherous odyssey with far-reaching progressive possibilities, which Hugh and Steve navigate together. 

Swimming with sharks, by Jenni Elbourne who was treated for acute myeloid leukaemia during the covid pandemic, is a 5-minute visual spoken word poem with abstracted illustrated visuals to “emphasise sensation”. 

The piece takes the shape of a cleverly unbroken description of sensations, thoughts, imaginings, longings, hope-building and fortifying metaphors in the monotonous timbre and rhythm akin to the regular bleep of hospital devices. The way Elbourne’s voice camouflaged into her environment was particularly effective, morphing into the tune of Baby Shark, and giving the piece a haunting physicality.

Having watched Swimming with Sharks, I subsequently discovered that the constant beeping in hospitals has been linked with patient deaths because caregivers become desensitised (https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20180810-the-simple-change-that-can-save-patients-lives). Elbourne gives us valuable insight into the private phenomena of how this actually feels from the perspective of a patient who is lying alone in this heartbreaking situation. In this way, Elbourne powerfully raises awareness of a patient’s perspective in their darkest hour. The piece gives us a potent, visceral insight into feelings of clinical vulnerability and isolation, and emergent creativity and strength to discover unexpected harmonies and hopeful possibilities.Given the right level of financial backing, something like this could be transformative for the NHS if incorporated in continuing training practices for care-givers working in hospitals.

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