On a Friday exactly two months ago, my working week was drawing to an end. It’d been a busy week, full of meetings and rehearsals for a forthcoming tour of our stage show ‘Not I’.

With hindsight there were a few things that might have hinted at the cataclysmic changes that were around the corner, but at the time I was caught up in work and hadn’t paid much attention to meetings being cancelled or re-located, and all the elbow-bumping instead of hand shaking.…

Plastic straws have been banned in the UK. This has been on the cards for months but the new legislation was announced only a few days ago. There’s a medical exemption for ill or disabled people who require them, and thankfully no one will have to prove a need for them.…

Back in March I wrote about the threatened ban on plastic straws. In it I responded to a lot of the questions non-disabled people were asking when disabled people told them they really do need straws. So if you’re thinking “What about…” or “Just carry your own” or “Why make such a fuss about straws?”…

A couple of days ago I got an unexpected call from my Local Authority’s Adult Social Care Community Review Team (what a mouthful!) The woman I spoke to was very friendly and explained that she needed to visit me to review my personal budget, which is the funding I get that covers my support at home.…

I knew it would happen sooner or later. I’ve watched friends go through the same difficult and time-consuming process over the last few years, and I knew my turn would come.

Today’s post brought a brown envelope from the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP).…

Access to Work is a vital equalising scheme that provides the practical support that disabled people in employment need to do their jobs. For me this means covering the cost of my support worker and the additional costs of accessible transport to and from work.…

I’ve just had a day of great meetings about really exciting projects and coming events. They’ve been in incredible places across London, including Tate Modern, the Wellcome Trust and Battersea Arts Centre. But I’m not going to discuss any of these.…

We’re on tour with Backstage In Biscuit Land again. We’ve been performing in Sarajevo for the last few days and at 4:00 this morning we left for Ireland.

Sarajevo is a beautiful city, full of generous, friendly people, but it’s not accessible.…

It’s American Independence Day today and it’s strangely appropriate that I’ve had my personal budget review this morning. My personal budget is the amount of money I get from my Local Authority Social Work team to pay for the support I need at home – and it‘s essential to my independence.…

Some people might see me as an ‘acceptable’ sort of disabled person. I work, pay tax and generally feel pretty positive about my life. But I’ll let you into a secret: this isn’t because I’m saintly or have an exceptional character.…