Four performers, hailed as ‘some of the bravest, boldest, candid and risk-taking on today’s theatre scene’ are set to take their award-nominated cabaret, Not F**kin’ Sorry! back on the road in 2025 due to popular demand, following sold out runs at London’s Soho Theatre in 2019 and on their UK tour in 2022.
With luscious lip syncs, sweaty dances and verbatim stories, Housni Hassan, known as DJ, Stephanie Newman, Emma Selwyn and Adam Smith, all neurodivergent and learning disabled artists, are excited to once again be welcoming audiences into their space, on their terms, for an evening of electric burlesque, biting comedy and with a “wake up call” for audiences, so promises the show’s co-creator and director, Liselle Terret.
Recalling the origins of the piece, she reveals, “I asked the actors: ‘If you had the opportunity to make a show for the public, what would it be about? Something that pisses you off?’ The actors talked about benefit-cuts and about the few, if any, opportunities they had to go to nightclubs and bars. I’d been touring political comedy/cabaret in queer venues and suggested we do a cabaret which would allow them to speak directly to audiences while using parody to raise important issues about disability.”
Under the banner, Not Your Circus Dog Collective, Terret, Hassan, Newman, Selwyn and Smith brought the ground-breaking work Not F**kin’ Sorry! to life and, with co-producers Access All Areas and The Hale, quickly found it nominated in the Best Cabaret category of the 2022 Offie Awards. Recognition that Terret admits still left her feeling “pissed off”.
“We should have won,” she says, passionately. “We are a collaborative, subversive, crip, queer, learning disabled and neurodivergent performance company that set out to make new, relevant, punk, devised work that disrupts theatrical norms. We do that by drawing on the company’s lived experiences of discrimination. That alone usually challenges venues and audiences in their understanding of those stories and on which stages they can be told.”
If there’s a degree of frustration from not winning that award, the show’s title is derived from a more general exasperation. “It acknowledges our anger and frustration that, as disabled people, we are constantly being scapegoated, dehumanised, and marginalised,” confirms Terret. “Yes, we are very angry but the title also reflects the journey the actors and myself went on during rehearsals; everyone kept apologising and saying, ‘I’m Sorry’; ‘I’m sorry for doing it wrong’ ‘I’m sorry for the way I look’, ‘I’m sorry I talk like this’, ‘I’m sorry for the way I move’, ‘I’m sorry I don’t understand’, ‘I’m sorry for my anger…’ We made a game out of this, so that we could only say, ‘I’m Not Sorry’, which then led to the final title of Not F**kin’ Sorry!”
The four actors are all graduates of Access All Areas’ Diploma in Performance Making, in which they learn about auto-biographical performance and how to use their own experiences to inform the core of their work. That transforms those experiences into dynamic, relevant and exciting professional theatre ranging from the rebellious to the sexy, the confrontational to the angry. All enable the cast to use their crip/queer stage personas as a means of protest for change as well as a great night’s entertainment.
Terret, reflects, “The actor’s confidence grew hugely as we toured to some of the UK’s most respected venues, including the main house at Soho Theatre and the Queen Elizabeth Hall at the Southbank Centre, London. However the discrimination experienced in everyone’s lives does not disappear, so we also do a lot of work on care and safety in and outside of the rehearsals with cast members.”
The new tour of Not F**kin’ Sorry!, which has been updated since its last outing, kicks off at New Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich, on Tuesday 4 March and ends at the Derby Theatre, on Saturday 12 April, taking in Colchester’s Mercury Theatre, The Dada Festival at Liverpool’s Unity Theatre and the Brighton Dome, along the way.
“Audiences are surprised at the power, defiance and humour of the actors,” observes Terret, expanding, “For example, the show includes one scene called, Yes We Can Have Sex!, in which the cast share their sexual fantasies. The scenes range from the hilarious to the more thought provoking, tackling important issues within our community such as ‘Mate Crime’ – many learning-disabled people have had ‘tricky’ and ‘bad’ friends, who see them as a source of money, using them for their benefit, or engaging in non-consensual and inappropriate touching.”
She continues, “All are featured in Not F**kin’ Sorry! in the hope that the performers can get their stories across in a way that not just entertains but also makes audiences think. Through parody, seduction, lights, cabaret, sex, audience interaction, and the word ‘f**k‘ spoken by a Down’s syndrome actor, the hope is to make those watching feel ready to be an advocate and an ally of the actors and others who live their life experiences.”
A joyous, life-affirming and often outrageous piece of cabaret-theatre, Not F**kin Sorry! promise the company, an evening of laughter and tears that implicates, provokes and maybe even shocks… get ready to meet DJ, Steph, Emma and Adam, they’re sexy and saucy and very definitely Not F**kin’ Sorry!
Not F**kin’ Sorry Tour | New Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich, 4-6 March, 7.30pm, tickets here | Mercury Theatre, Colchester, 18-19 March, 8pm, tickets here | Dada Festival, Unity Theatre, Liverpool, 22 March, 7.30pm, tickets here | Brighton Dome, 8-9 April, 7.30pm, tickets here | Derby Theatre, 12 April, 8pm, tickets here
Commissioned by Access All Areas Theatre Productions
