We sat down for a quick chat with Cerys Bradley ahead of their show at Edinburgh Fringe, Queer Tales for Autistic Folk
- What drew you to the choose-your-own-adventure format, and how does it shape the way you connect with the audience?
I have been very interested in audience participation for a while – it’s been a big feature of previous shows and the choose-your-own-adventure format felt like the logical extension of that area of development for me. Part of the motivation for the show was answering the question, how do we facilitate audience participation in a way that is specifically designed for neurodivergent folk? Well, a big part of that is quite specific instructions, so giving people options a,b,c, to answer my questions led very quickly to a structured cyoa set up.
The show can, sort of, be thought of in two sections and one is quite a strict cyoa style and the other is quite loose and improvised. I think they both complement each other and you can’t have one without the other. By the time we get to the improvised section, I like to think that I’ve got a good gauge and understanding of my audience, and we’ve already built something of a world together which makes the improvisation easier and feel more specific to the people who are in the room.
A big reason why I love this show is because every show is different and we get to collectively build something unique so, in terms of how it shapes the way I connect with the audience, I this format helps me to truly connect, in contrast to other comedy shows I’ve made that were perhaps a bit more “I’m performing for you to watch”. This show doesn’t work without an audience, so we all have to be in it and working together.
- In what ways do your experiences as an autistic, non-binary performer influence the stories you choose to tell?
So technically, technically, autism is considered a communication disorder which I find very interesting. It puts a lot of the burden of communication on autistic people sort of by saying that you are the reason you both don’t understand and are misunderstood. I like to use shows to try and communicate my autistic experience, and my experience as genderqueer, to other autistic and queer people. A lot of my performance and writing essentially is trying to say, “does this make sense? do you know this feeling? have you experienced this too?” I’ve really enjoyed chatting to people after this show and they will pull out a really minor joke or experience from the show, like repeatedly forgetting to rinse one armpit in the shower, and tell me that they do that as well. The things are always so niche that it feels really weird (in a good way) to be finding other people who have the exact same experience.
- What do you hope neurodivergent audiences take from the show—and how do you think it lands with those outside that experience?
A big theme I’m trying to explore with the show is the set of messy feelings that can arise after diagnosis. If you get diagnosed as an adult it often feels like you’ve been promised some clarity and that life will get easier which has not been my experience. My diagnosis unstopped something and released a whole lot of feelings that have been quite confusing and difficult to wade through. I hope that neurodivergent audiences who see the show might connect with that experience and that will help with understanding disability as a non-linear experience?
For other people who are coming to see the show, I guess it is also a window into the mundanity of being disabled. All of the small things, particularly the little things that can be easily fixed but you can’t fix them and so they get you every day. I hope that the cyoa format and some of the puzzles in the show might help to communicate the particular experience of feeling like you’re desperately trying to survive in a world that is working against you.
- That hidden door in a toilet is such a striking image—what does it symbolise for you in the context of the show?
The door is a real door to a real toilet where I work. I teach in a school that has really bad toilet access and that very much inspired that element of the show. Within the show itself, the door is symbolic of getting a diagnosis. You have to jump through a bunch of administrative hoops and go round and round in circles until you find it and then when you do it feels so important but then, when you’re through the door, you’re stranded on a mountain with no idea how the world works…
- How different does each performance feel depending on the choices the audience makes?
Hugely different! The people who volunteer to play the game have a massive influence on how the show goes. I would like to think that every show is fun and funny but we’ve drawn humour from lots of different places. This weekend, at Machynlleth comedy festival, for instance, the jokes got quite surreal through the characters that were invented, in other shows, people have been very insistent on completing the admin-based tasks in the game which are unsolvable and very Kafka-inspired so things got borderline hysterical. Some people get into the fantasy world and go on a quest, others have found romance. The audience gets to decide what the point of the story is and no two audiences have chosen the same objective yet.
- This is your return to the Edinburgh Fringe—what’s one thing you’re excited to dive into (on or off stage) this time around?
I cannot wait to see shows. There are so many exciting performers with new work this year. Leila Navabi is returning and I cannot wait to see their brand new show. Su Mi is debuting so I’m definitely going to see Thismotherphucker. Sam Nicoresti has a new show… Steffan Alun is officially, technically debuting. My list of things I want to see is already too long.