Jackie Hagan Brings THIS IS NOT A SAFE SPACE to Contact Manchester; Spring 2018 UK Tour Announced

According to a report from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, half of people in poverty are disabled or live with a disabled person. In her new show This is Not a Safe Space amputee poet and performer Jackie Hagan demands that people sit up, listen and care about this, and not keel over with empathy fatigue.

Drawing on first-person interviews with over 80 people and using DIY Puppetry, poetry and stand up comedy (including a game of metaphorical Kerplunk), Jackie Hagan brings stories of those on the margins of society to the stage in a new show commissioned by Unlimited and Contact, with a particular emphasis on class, mental illness and disabilities. Far from sob stories, these testimonies reveal fully rounded lives full of spiky humour.

Jackie weaves these narratives together with poetry and anecdotes, celebrating the weird, the wonky, the unruly, and the resilient. There's Trish who is sick of doctors not taking her seriously because she is mentally ill and disobedient. Neil who got arrested for the first time because "you can't run when you're laughing"; and Karen who is a wheelchair user who thinks we'd be better off letting sheep take over the world because humans are making a pigs ear of it.

Speaking about This is Not a Safe Space, Jackie Hagan said "I wrote this show because I'm sick of seeing people like me misrepresented on rubbish shows like Benefits Street and ignored by theatre. I'm sick of people thinking we all just need to try a bit harder and stop spending our time drinking lager and watching our massive tellies. I grew up on a council estate, I've got one leg and I'm bipolar. I know you have to take the mickey out of things to get by. This show says we're important, there's tonnes of us and we're not victims, saints or sinners. We're people.""

Preview dates of This is Not a Safe Space at Contact Manchester will be followed by a UK tour during Spring 2018

Jackie Hagan is a working-class queer disabled poet, performer and theater maker and a Jerwood Compton Poetry Fellow. Her work focuses on celebrating the experiences of people left out of the mainstream. Her solo show Some People Have Too Many Legs won the 2015 Saboteur Award for Best Spoken Word Show and toured nationally to venues including Hull Truck and Bristol Old Vic. Her debut play Cosmic Scallies was commissioned by Graeae and ran at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in summer 2017.

For more information visit jackiehagan.org or https://contactmcr.com/.