On reflection, it hasn’t been my best few months – and yes, that is understatement of the century. it has been really difficult and exhausting and well.. just sad. If you are kind enough to read some of my other blog posts, you will probably get a sense that I don’t hold back. Yet, in this one, for respect for the process I have to go through, it’s probably best to not go there. I do think it is useful to say that things are tough this end. Both personal and professional, there has been a huge amount of change with me flaying in the wind, trying to find some anchor to ground myself with. when I have managed to find some kind of confidence, it has been in the magic of creativity, collaboration and process, which is currently Squeeze Box!

smiling students wondering a wheelchair user, who it is about to say something. they are in a grey colour studio space.

In this global and local time of breakdown (the climate crisis, nature depletion, endless health waiting lists, transport that doesn’t work etc) exaggerated by current and recent austerity/brutal cuts to local government, social care and all the other pillars which keeps our community together, everyone I speak to seems to be going through tough times. I want to share my reality because it is one story amongst many. Yet there is still theatre being created, we still manage to make and collaborate and find joy. The collaborating process keeps me going and so many more. I am so dam fortunate to work with extraordinary artists like Tim Dollimore and producer Sophia Knox-Miller. They have been rocks with all things planning and Ace comms. And not to mention the wider community who have just been there, from the Doorstep family, Nat, Erin, Mair and co to FarFlung and everyone in Plymouth to Northcott and my people in and around Exeter.

So let’s write stories about friendship and laughter, community and care. And when the time comes that we can make together again, the ending of the story will be written by us.

A wheelchair user in a black jacket and dark brown hair reaches for a lift call button. The lift is covered in graffiti, dirt and looks broken. There's a poster on his back, celebrating the Dada movement.

I am in the moment and it is exhausting. Left, right, left, right, left, right, … I am just trying to put one foot in front of the other, and I guess that tactic is ‘working’… just; it seems inherently capitalist, which adds to my feeling of a downward directory – I am experiencing the day-in-day-out more than I have ever done within my 30years. Yet, there are highlights and joyful moments which are punctuation marks, and really help to highlight a day as more than a tomorrow and a yesterday. The creative process is magical for that.

For example, Tim and I met with the amazing Sam Parker from the Northcott Theatre Exeter and we got creative, like really creative… not saying we quite wrote the next instalment of Squeeze Box but we came up with a new installation style performance which will take over the whole building and a bit of the outside to. Yes, we basically wrote a new piece of work, in one afternoon, dam we’re good….

And , I workshopped! I reflected before, many a time of how the collective journey we call workshop is transformation for everyone in the space. We sometimes use the phrase lesson or session interchangeably with the word workshop, but they are different. The space where hierarchy is lessened somehow – the concept of the facilitator having all the knowledge and power and regurgitating a lesson plan, to quiet respectable participants is not quite workshop. Instead, with the brilliant Dr Erin Walcon and her totally inspiring students, workshops together. Supported by Sophia, I offered some parameters around games and play commenced. The students inspired, first of all, me to change the rules and then themselves push the boundaries of each game to make the space work with the people in the room. We then reflected on the game and shared knowledge on what has just been experienced. We applied ourselves, and our theatre skill to understand something new… yes, we workshopped!

4 images all in a ray studio with black curtains. 1 circle of people watching two 2 small circle with people laughing, 3 close ups off two people, 4 people lying on the floor waiting for instructions from two seated

On the way back from one of these inspiring sessions, I was half listening to the radio. This conversation on the radio programme has been floating around in my mind for some time now, hence the rambling thoughts in the paragraphs below. I keep going back to this idea of the left and the right, and how new science and thinking can open so many possibilities for all. An indication of the state of mind I am in at the moment, I can’t remember the programme title, or have the energy to go and find it, to do a full reference. That is not like me at all.. my lecturer from Plymouth, if you are reading this, apologies…like everything, you’ve got to try plagiarism once… right??

It was BBC Radio 4 and it was something like All in the Mind or Theologian Assemble (I made that last title up)…they were discussing research about how to find out what goes on in the brain when individuals are having a religious or transcending experience and how neuroscience and theology come together. There was a Professor kind of person explaining the new thinking of the hemisphere of the brain. The new thinking apparently goes beyond the right being quite good at language and music, and the left numbers and list. They were introducing the concept of both sides input information at the same time and the left experiences the world as absolute, exact numbers or states. Everything is either on or off, and only relies on itself to be….this is a carrot, because it’s a carrot, they are sad because they have a bruise which must hurt. The right, however, is always in flux, it understands the world as ever changing and acknowledges it is not a fixed point but it relies on multiple points to make sense. This is orange and long, it tastes nicer with seasoning and people say it is good for you, so it might be a carrot. It is horrible seeing someone like that, so they might be sad and let’s comfort them maybe?

My understanding is that the left side tries to answer questions, the right wonders if there was a question in the first place. In Squeeze Box, we are always pondering the balance between us using the work to inform audience of the reality of benefits assessment and how dehumanising they can be… and us ‘just’ providing people with an experience which allows them to make up their own mind. Why are we using the medium of live performance and interactive media instead of writing a book or creating a podcast? Anyone can listen to, or read from disabled academics and people with lived experience to learn what it is like in 21st century Britain for people who rely on these restricted systems. How do we allow people to go on an accessible journey in someone else’s shoes? On the other hand, it is important to lay down the facts and to get across the truth that it should not be this way, that disabled/neurodiverse/sick families have to fight a system of ongoing assessments, form-filling, dehumanising processes, many a time with the consequences of ‘failing’ the assessment being dire.

audience watch a colourful and chaotic large scale projection inside. Creating a large shadow, a wheelchair user wearing white overalls and a bright light in their face. On the projection. Their worried looking face makes up some of the image.

Left, right: used to be a construct, but in our crumbling political discourse, not so much nowadays. Yet it is still dominant in our outdated education system, and therefore throughout society (Bold Politics with Zack Polanski, 2025). The unhealthy concept of: we are doing ‘History’ now, and when the bell goes 45 minutes later, young people have to switch off one part of their brain, in order to do Maths. And, if they are ‘lucky’, we may do one lesson a week in art. Then exaggerate this limiting concept to, some people are dominating right side, and therefore are doomed to fail at science, or they should keep their head down in maths as their creative mind is too scatty for tables and graphs. These are artificial barriers literally only exist in the school environment – it is crazy to think now that for seven years, as I was growing up, I was literally was moulded into a model that frames the universe by ‘neatly’ dividing Maths, Science, English, Art etc into little lessons! And we all have to go through this… Young people are still going through this…

This isn’t about Squeeze Box having to cater for all different learning styles… although I am sceptical about dividing people even more so into these parameters, it is a step in the right direction that Education is beginning to realise there isn’t just one way to teach. My reflection on this is more about taking the pressure of us when we are making this work. We can appreciate that the mind can be comfortable with the abstract and tension, that things aren’t right or left or good or bad. That literally half of ourselves are happy with the unknowing and the wonder of things.

And the deepest reflections here might well be, in this time of sadness and confusion for me personally, I can always escape into the creative, messy, and joyfully surreal … and then reach out to amazing people who ‘get me’ and that allows me to escape living too much in my head, altogether.

Bold Politics with Zack Polanski (2025) YouTube, How An Education System Became A Mental Health Crisis | Natasha Devon | Zack Polanski. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=308kvoBM3xw Accessed: 19th November 2025.

Left, Right

Sweet…!