Ouch Talk Show June 2016 bbc.co.uk/ouch
Presented by Kate Monaghan and Simon Minty
[Jingle: Ouch.]
SIMON Welcome to the Ouch talk show. It’s a disability thing. That was a bit…
KATE That was weird. Where did the music go? What did you do with it, Simon? Where’s it gone?
SIMON I didn’t. Anyway, thanks for introducing me. I am Simon Minty.
KATE You are Simon Minty. And I’m Kate Monaghan. And the way this show works is, well we’re disabled and so are our guests, so I mean it’s quite simple really isn’t it?
SIMON It is. Let’s meet them. To celebrate BBC Music Day which was on June 3rd we have Nicholas McCarthy with us. Nicholas is the concert pianist who has one hand and it’s this limb difference and impressive talent which have made him popular with the media. So what’s the question you get asked most often?
NICHOLAS You know, there’s always an awkward moment when you’re at parties and people say, “What do you do for a living?” And the last thing they expect me to say is, “I’m a concert pianist with one hand.” So yeah, I sometimes lie at parties because sometimes I can’t be bothered to explain, I’m like oh I’ll just show them a YouTube video.
SIMON But when you say I’m a concert pianist do you occasionally get people who think, oh he’s a little bit sarcastic or something like that? Do they not believe you in that sense?
NICHOLAS 100%, that happens more often than you would think it, yeah.
SIMON So then you almost have to defend your position, “I really am, I am!”
NICHOLAS “I am, Google me!”
KATE Do you have like a video on your phone that you just go no really, look? Here, here.
NICHOLAS No, I need that just ready to go. Kind of a ready to go video.
KATE Ruth Madeley is also with us.
RUTH Hi. KATE Hi Ruth, how are you doing?
RUTH I’m good. How are you?
KATE Good, thank you. Now, she’s one of the stars of Jack Thorne’s Bafta winning drama, ‘Don’t Take My Baby’ which aired on BBC Three last year.
SIMON Loved it.
KATE It was so good, it was so good.
RUTH Oh, guys. Too good to me.
KATE But ten years ago she was on this very programme being our work experience kid. Do you remember that, Ruth?
RUTH Yes I do. I’m actually quite frightened now because you’re going to let me listen to stuff that I don’t want to listen to.
KATE Oh, I just don’t know what you mean by that. There’s no chance of our producers doing that to you, Ruth, honestly.
RUTH Yes you do, don’t you lie to me! SIMON I think we’ve got time to find something, thanks for the little idea there, we really appreciate it.
RUTH Oh guys.
KATE Did you enjoy being an Ouch work experience?
RUTH Oh it was fab, absolutely fantastic.
KATE Yeah, you have to say that.
RUTH Yeah, I really do.
SIMON Later we’ll be speaking to two people on the scheme called Gig Buddies. It pairs learning disabled adults with likeminded volunteers so they can go to gigs together.
KATE And we’ve got music from New York rap duo, Four Wheel City and the return of the quiz that just won’t go away, so I’m going to whisper it. Simon, we’re going to play Vegetable, Vegetable or Vegetable.
SIMON I am really, really excited about this. This is an honour isn’t it, as well as really risky.
KATE An honour and a privilege, it sure is and I’m just excited because I get the chance to prove my disability knowledge is well above yours.
SIMON Yeah, and sort of Matt and Liz did it silly-ly never to guess it right, we’re going to be weirdly competitive aren’t we?
KATE Well I am.
SIMON All right.
KATE Anyway. But first let’s get back to Nicholas McCarthy. Now Nicholas, sometimes it feels people are in competition but disabled people particularly are in competition to see who can do the most unlikely job with the impairment that they have. So last month we had a one armed chef, this month we have a one armed pianist. Now, I just want to ask why, what made you at a young age just think to yourself yeah, I’ve got one arm but it’s going to be the piano for me?
NICHOLAS I actually wanted - it was Ronnie Murray you had on wasn’t it last time, and he tweeted me earlier - and I actually wanted to be a chef when I was younger, so I was equally as drawn to these two handed jobs, I don’t know why. And then I saw a friend of mine play a Beethoven piano sonata at the age of 14, that’s how old I was when I started, and I just had one of those epiphany moments really where I was like that is what I want to do as a career, not just to learn the piano, I wanted to earn my money playing the piano. KATE So what did your parents say when you came to them and said, “Mum, Dad, I want to play the piano”?
NICHOLAS My mum and dad have always been so supportive and they’ve always brought me up to know even though yes, I am physically different they’ve always brought me up for me to feel completely confident in any situation and they were always there. And I think also, you know what it’s like at the age of 14, you’ve got that kind of teenage invincibility almost.
SIMON You can do anything.
NICHOLAS Exactly. And that’s what I felt, I was like oh, I can be a concert pianist.
SIMON So you had played the piano before then?
NICHOLAS No, I hadn’t even read a note of music.
SIMON. Stop it.
NICHOLAS We come from very unmusical families. I don’t really know where I arrived from really, but yeah, that’s how it started.
SIMON That’s intense. KATE And how did you find a piano teacher that was willing to…?
NICHOLAS Well I just didn’t tell them, I didn’t tell them about my lack of a hand, so she turned up on the day…
SIMON What? After the fifth lesson did they spot something?
NICHOLAS Maybe, I’m not sure. No, on the day it was quite funny because I… To be honest, I just forget though, I mean I’m sure we all do, you know, with our various different disabilities, I won’t always be like, “Hi, I’m Nicholas McCarthy, I have one hand,” so when I was on the phone organising this first lesson I completely forgot, just genuinely forgot to say, “Oh by the way, I have one hand.” So when she turned up on the day I opened the front door and it was kind of that moment of horror where she saw me, smiled, and looked down at my right arm that wasn’t there and was like, “Have I got the right house? You are learning piano, is that correct?” So anyway, I then played to her and she was then crying, I was hoping in a good way, not that I was that terrible.
KATE Okay, so had you taught yourself a little bit before your lesson then?
NICHOLAS I taught myself a little bit, yeah, so by that stage I was probably about a grade two or grade three level, I kind of progressed quite quickly.
KATE That’s quite impressive for self-teaching. NICHOLAS Yeah, and I enjoyed it so much, I kind of replaced my PlayStation with my piano and that was how I kind of, it was a hobby, it was a complete… it overtook me really.
SIMON Do you get a little kick, or maybe as a 14, 15 year old you got a kick just to be contrary or was it just the love of the piano and that epiphany that was like…?
NICHOLAS A bit of everything really, I loved the attention of course, you know, at school everyone went, “Oh my god, Nick’s amazing at the piano,” blah, blah, blah, of course that’s good, I’m an artist, I’m an ego, you know, we all have egos. And secondly it was the fact that, you know, it’s unexpected and I love that, I love a bit of shock value to be honest. So yeah, I think it was all a combination of those things.
SIMON Do you think we should listen to a little bit?
KATE Well I just think that people aren’t going to believe that you’re any good unless we hear you.
SIMON Yeah we had to go on YouTube.
KATE Because when I got told we were having a one armed pianist I was like oh great, it’s going to be another one of…
NICHOLAS Yeah, roll your eyes, yeah. KATE Yeah exactly and then Emma sent me some clips and I was thinking I don’t even believe that this is him playing. So I kind of want to see it in the flesh. How about you?
SIMON I’d love to.
KATE All right, do you want to go off to our piano in the studio?
NICHOLAS Absolutely.
KATE Which I’m not sure we’ve ever had anyone playing on the podcast have we?
SIMON Not piano, there’s always a blooming great grand piano in the studio which is fabulous but…
KATE Yeah. Right, so Nicholas is ready to go at our piano. So Nicholas, take it away.
[music]
SIMON Go on, say it, say it.
KATE He’s really doing it. RUTH That was so beautiful.
SIMON Yes, very dramatic as well for us.
NICHOLAS Well a nice bit of Russian romantic, Scriabin, to start our day.
SIMON Thank you for telling us what it was as well.
KATE So how do you do it? I don’t even know how you do that.
NICHOLAS So it’s a lot of very fast movement. Basically my job as a left hand alone pianist is to create an illusion that there’s two or three hands playing at once, whereas in fact as you’ve just seen there’s only one hand playing. And it all stems from basically the 19th century onwards that it was a tradition for left hand, not right hand, left hand alone pianists. So basically a two handed pianist would play a big concert and they used to have rock star status back in the day, and they would play this massive sold out concert and obviously the crowd would be going wild at the end, and as an encore the pianist would often say, “Right, you thought I was good with two hands, wait till you see what I can do with my left hand,” because the left hand is naturally your weaker hand to most people. So it was almost like an ironic thing, look what I could do with my weak hand. And they would play this amazing left hand virtuoso firework kind of thing at the piano and it would just send the crowd wild. And then if we cast our mind forward in history the First World War happened and so many servicemen obviously lost limbs in battle, statistically usually the right arm because most people are right handed so you’re more likely to injure that, and then that’s how again the repertoire was then expanded further by commissions of, you know, the big named composers of the day.
SIMON So Emma, our producer, is a blind person and it sort of just blows her mind doesn’t it.
KATE It does, it does. Well she wants to feel how you do it because she can’t see it.
NICHOLAS It would be delightful to Emma feel me this morning, that would be fine.
KATE She’s going to feel or touch Nicholas as he plays.
EMMA I’m going to touch.
KATE On his arm.
SIMON On his arm and hand.
KATE Just to be very clear about that.
SIMON Well that’s what we’re hoping. NICHOLAS And then almost try and follow it.
EMMA Okay, I’m going to try not to touch you too heavily because then you’ll get it wrong.
NICHOLAS Play wrong notes.
KATE Nicholas has just guided Emma’s hand onto his hand so that they’ve got a starting point now. And I think he’s just about to play.
SIMON We’ll watch Emma’s face. This should be fun.
[music]
EMMA I actually can’t find his hand, I’m struggling to follow it.
KATE Emma just can’t… she can’t keep up I don’t think.
EMMA I’m not getting in his way? I’m trying to find his hand.
SIMON All right, Nicholas is losing it a little bit there.
EMMA I think he’s actually playing with me now. KATE She really can’t keep up at all.
EMMA That’s incredible.
NICHOLAS I felt bad, I almost wanted just to grab your hand, be like no, I’m here, I’m here.
EMMA Left a bit, right a bit.
SIMON While you’re there Nicholas we’re just going to get a deaf person to lay on the piano so they can feel the vibrations.
KATE The vibrations.
SIMON We’re going to work through a whole load of impairment groups.
NICHOLAS Bring them in.
SIMON Thank you so much for doing that Nicholas, that’s the sort of quality journalism that we do here at BBC Ouch. Kate?
KATE Is there anything that you can’t play that you wish you could play? NICHOLAS There’s so many pieces, Rachmaninov’s, 2nd Piano Concerto for instance. I’d probably be able to make an arrangement of it but why would I because I’d rather see a two handed pianist play it with all the notes in there. So when I was younger I had to accept that I had to wave goodbye to all of these big pieces like Tchaikovsky’s 1st Piano Concerto and Rach 2 and things that I would never be able to play but I had to say hello to all this repertoire which I do play and there’s so much of it. So yeah, it’s something I had to come to terms with and I found difficult.
KATE And how did that feel?
NICHOLAS It was hard because, you know, I love Mozart for instance yet Mozart didn’t write anything for left hand alone.
SIMON He always had that selfish reputation didn’t he, very sort of anti-disability, Mozart.
KATE Unlike Beethoven.
SIMON Oh yeah, he loved it.
NICHOLAS And then I obviously found all this wonderful repertoire and now I’m so happy playing that, so it’s fine now.
KATE I mean saying you’re a one armed pianist and that’s true but you do have a little… NICHOLAS I have a little arm, yes, so basically I haven’t got my hand, wrist or most of my forearm but I have got my elbow and a very small part of my forearm. So it’s perfect for carrying drinks in bars really, I can still carry my friends’ drinks over.
KATE I mean that’s the most important thing, so as long as that’s sorted.
NICHOLAS Exactly, as long as that was there.
KATE But did you every play with it? Did you ever use it?
NICHOLAS Yes I did, when I first started out I used to use my little arm to play a one note, obviously in the right and then my left hand, and then I decided to specialise in left hand repertoire as it’s a serious repertoire and I could see I could have a full lifelong career by specialising in left hand repertoire, whereas if I was to play with my little arm and my left hand I wouldn’t have gone through to the Royal College like that, I wouldn’t be able to play the repertoire sufficiently enough. KATE Why was that?
NICHOLAS Well if you think, if you take a piece of Rachmaninov for instance, often in the right hand and the left hand there’s five note chords in both hands, well obviously I’d only be ever able to play one note in my right hand and then the chords in my left. So I’m always never going to be playing every single note and when you’re being judged constantly on technical ability, musicality, if I’m not playing all the notes that a two handed pianist is playing then really I’m not playing the same piece.
SIMON I like it, you’re being a purist, because I always think Britain’s Got Talent and those things, they always have someone and particularly in Japan or something and you’ve avoided that and you’re not trying to…
NICHOLAS Which was difficult, I mean I’m a massive fan of the show but I can literally, even if I didn’t own a calendar I would know the month because every April one of the producers contacts my management and says, “Can Nicholas do the show?” And before when I was first starting out and I didn’t have management they were absolutely doing everything in their power to make sure they had me on the show. And as much as it would have been wonderful and, you know, I wouldn’t have won it, I’m a classical musician, but it would have been big exposure.
SIMON But short term?
NICHOLAS It would have been short lived and I really didn’t want that, and also the classical music world is a very, very difficult world and I’ve worked very hard to keep those doors open and have done it successfully and if I did a show like that those doors would very quickly slam shut and I’d always, always known as ‘Britain’s Got Talent finalist’ or ‘Britain’s Got Talent semi-finalist’ or ‘competitor, Nicholas McCarthy’, I’d never be able to shake that off, so I avoided that and I’m very pleased I did to be honest.
SIMON Not for the quick fix. And Ruth, are you musical? Have you played an instrument?
RUTH I played the violin when I was younger but nothing anywhere near as good as anyone else.
KATE Would you go on Britain’s Got Talent with your violin because you’re in a wheelchair?
RUTH Would I hell! No, not at all.
KATE Oh but think of the money and the fame for five minutes.
RUTH Yeah, but I’m just thinking of how many people would laugh at me really rather than anything else.
KATE This is your chance to plug your tour and anything else you want to plug. Do you want to take this opportunity?
NICHOLAS Oh thanks. Yeah, well it was so lovely because last year, I mean every live musician, whether you’re a classical, pop, rock, we’re all chasing that big record deal and that happened for me last year, I signed to Warner Music which is the same record label as Ed Sheeran and Coldplay which is nice.
KATE Fancy. NICHOLAS But I’m obviously on the classics side of it.
SIMON You’re in the big league.
NICHOLAS And that was a really, really big deal for me so I was thrilled, so my album, ‘Solo’ came out in September and got to number four in the charts. Who knew? A disabled artist getting to number four, it doesn’t really happen that often.
KATE Is there like a picture of you with just your one arm up in the air?
NICHOLAS There isn’t, but I might have to get that commissioned.
KATE Yeah, I think you should.
NICHOLAS I think that needs to be there.
KATE Yeah, definitely.
SIMON What, just to kind of reinforce everything?
KATE Just to reinforce what’s happening here. Just the one arm, and my piano. NICHOLAS You know what was funny, when the album came out it was Classic FM Album of the Week - I’m not sure I’m allowed to say that on BBC, but anyway – and John Suchet had to keep mentioning after he played my tracks all week, he had to say, “And just remember, that is one hand playing,” because obviously it’s radio so you don’t know that it’s one hand playing at all unless you see me in a live concert.
SIMON You’ve given me a thought. When you get that sort of acclaim or praise or whatever is there a little bit of you kind of goes, I hope it’s not just because of that one hand thing or do you have a little conflict with that sometimes, just saying no, I’m fabulous, regardless?
NICHOLAS Not at all, I think we’re all curious human beings aren’t we and I see time and time again on my concert tours and my concerts that people will come and they’ll be quite honest, “Oh, well I saw you on the telly and me and my husband’s never been to a classical concert before but we wanted to come and see you,” but then I see them time and time again from that moment onwards which then means that they’re then there for the music, they’re there for the whole thing. I’m playing all over the place, Durham, Leeds, London, Litchfield, Colchester and Devon and all the details are on my website, nicholasmccarthy.co.uk.
SIMON So a little challenge, because the famous two-handed piece is Chopsticks.
KATE Are we really going to ask a classical musician if they can play Chopsticks? NICHOLAS No you’re not!
SIMON I was just saying there’s a piece for two hands which I don’t agree with today, that’s what I was saying.
KATE Inappropriate I’d say.
NICHOLAS You were just making a statement weren’t you there? Yeah, the years of study at the Royal College of Music, you were just making that statement.
SIMON I think Emma’s totally inappropriate, I mean comes in and feels you up and now she’s trying to say, “Make him play something that is impossible.” I mean, what do we do, we’re just puppets here. I apologise Nicholas, on behalf of our producer.
KATE But if we wanted you to play it you could play it, right?
NICHOLAS Well you’d have to go through my management about that I think.
SIMON It’s going to be a YouTube sensation.
KATE Thank you Nicholas, we appreciate it.
SIMON I’m still getting asked, could you physically or is it just physically impossible?
NICHOLAS I would be able to, yes, I can pretty much play anything but I would have to go away and make a nice arrangement especially for you.
SIMON Right, got you, got you. Okay.
NICHOLAS And of course a very hefty fee is involved in that so I’m not sure that will happen.
KATE Well it’s Ouch, we have limitless amounts of money here.
NICHOLAS Limitless, it’s a bottomless pit of money here, I know.
KATE Yeah, it’s a bottomless pit, it’s fine.
SIMON I’m glad to finish the interview on such an awkward note and you’re still smiling at me politely and going what an idiot he is, but I swear, I swear.
[Jingle: bbc.co.uk/ouch]
SIMON We love receiving your feedback and Gabe Culver from Essex got in touch recently to say he doesn’t feel represented by us or anybody else in the media. He tells us that speech and fatigue issues means that it’s difficult for him to be on the show in person so we’re going to read out his email.
KATE “I just listened to your sex and money episode. I always feel frustrated when the subject of it’s society that disables people, and benefits and stuff comes up, because while many disabled people may be fully capable of a normal life with the right accommodations or whatever there is a group of us that never seems to get mentioned. I am severely disabled enough to be mostly bedbound with a combination of ME, Ehlers- Danlos and many of the associated conditions and issues that often seem to come with the syndrome. And there are honestly no conditions, adaptions, accommodations etc that could make it possible for me to hold down any kind of job. Even as a 19 year old before my health had deteriorated to a fraction of how bad it is now I became seriously ill by trying to force myself to keep working at a part time job when my symptoms were telling me that it was more than my body could handle. I detest not being able to earn my own keep in the world and support my family. I have tried many ways to somehow earn my own money over the years but all it has ever done is to rapidly end up with me capable of even less as my body deteriorates under the strain.”
SIMON That’s an extract from a much longer email. He asks, “Please Ouch, give a voice to disabled people like me as well as those who need acceptance and provision to be able to live full and active lives.”
KATE There’s lots of discussions about making disabled people more visible in the media and he raises a very, very interesting and difficult point. And we’d love to hear what everybody thinks about this, please do get in touch with [email protected] to get your voice on the podcast. SIMON Ruth, do you feel there’s a sort of pressure, I don’t know, to represent all disabled people? Do you understand where Gabe’s coming from in terms of when your impairment really stops you doing something and adjustments are not going to make any difference?
RUTH I think it’s a really, really difficult subject to breach but one that needs to be discussed really. I am incredibly lucky with my disability not really limiting me in the same way.
KATE You’ve got spina bifida, is that right?
RUTH Spina bifida and scoliosis yeah, I was born with my disability, and there have been times when growing up and my young adult life where I was incredibly poorly so in effect my disability did stop me for a certain amount of time, so I can’t say that I understand completely because I’m not living that every day but I do think it’s a conversation that needs to be had, there are plenty of people out there who have to rely on the systems in place to survive and yeah, more representation of any kind of diversity I think can only be a good thing.
KATE I think it’s a really interesting subject because for people who do have disabilities that mean they can’t work, they can’t get out, in the past the disability movement has been all about this is what we can do, this is what we can achieve, look at everything we can do, and then I guess there’s a section of the disability community that’s getting left behind in that. Simon, what do you think? SIMON Yeah, although I think some of the mood music at the moment is we can’t do this, we can’t do that, maybe because it’s saying because we haven’t got the support or the adjustments or whatever it may be. I get what he’s saying, that thing I want to be earning money, I think being productive or contributing or having value in life doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve got to go out and work and earn money, I know people with such severe impairments that that’s not going to happen but they do other things. And you’re nodding at me Nicholas, I mean where are you at in this?
NICHOLAS I completely agree with what you were saying there, you know, that validation of actually earning money, it should be a validation, you know, I completely understand where he’s coming from and how he must feel, but I’m sure he could probably find something that he may be able to do which gives him that validation that he’s obviously needing and I would need the same, you know, I’m sure we all would.
RUTH Oh god, definitely.
NICHOLAS But that isn’t a monetary thing.
SIMON But there’s also an add on and I think this is starting to change and I don’t know if this is me reaching middle age so these things happen naturally but when I…
KATE You say that as if you’re just reaching middle age. I think you’ve been there a while Simon. NICHOLAS Silver fox over there.
SIMON Okay, thanks. I don’t know where to go now. The point being, you know, we’re meant to be invincible, it’s allowed to be ‘vincible’, in that we can accept that our impairments are going to stop us physically. Tom Shakespeare was one, he’s undermining the social model in saying blind people won’t see the sunrise, there’s no adjustment, and it’s okay that is true.
KATE Yes. thank you so much for getting in touch Gabe, and if you want to comment on that or anything that we’ve been chatting about today please do get in touch, [email protected].
SIMON I don’t feel I explained that properly, I might write an email in to comment on that.
KATE Okay, write in for next month and then we might read it out, if it was good enough.
NICHOLAS If you’re lucky.
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SIMON Hello Hannah and Maria.
HANNAH/MARIA Hello. SIMON Now, the two of you are part of the Gig Buddies scheme where non-disabled volunteers are paired with people with learning difficulties who want to go to gigs. Here on the line from Brighton, Maria, how often do you see people with learning difficulties on TV and magazines?
MARIA None.
SIMON Great.
KATE None. Yeah, I think that is a good answer.
SIMON Yeah.
MARIA Yes, I watched ‘The A Word’.
KATE Oh, and what did you think?
MARIA I thought it was really good.
KATE What did you enjoy about it?
MARIA The little boy.
KATE Yes, so for anybody who hasn’t seen ‘The A Word’. SIMON Yes, what is it?
KATE It’s a BBC One drama about a young boy with autism and his life and it was really good, I really enjoyed it too.
MARIA Yeah.
HANNAH Yeah, it was good.
KATE Now you are here to talk about Gig Buddies. The basic idea of the scheme is to develop friendships and expand social circles. Now we’ve got a clip here of a Gig Buddies night out, so let’s have a listen.
MUM She can live her life and we can live our life, why should anybody of 26 go round with Mum and Dad all the time? And I trust this lady that’s coming to pick her up and we’ll give it a go.
DAUGHTER Yeah. [knock at door]
GIG BUDDY I’m so excited!
KATE That was a clip of a mum and a daughter who is part of the Gig Buddies scheme. Now Maria and Hannah, you were matched with each other over a year ago now and you still hit the town regularly, but Maria, what do you like about Hannah? What do you do with her?
MARIA We go to concerts.
KATE Yeah? What kind of concerts do you go to? Who have you seen?
MARIA Little Mix. Years and Years.
KATE Oh, good choices. I met Years and Years in the airport recently.
MARIA Really?
KATE Yeah, they were really nice.
MARIA I love Olly.
HANNAH You love the lead singer don’t you?
KATE I know, he’s so cool. He’s very handsome as well.
MARIA No, not for me. SIMON I know you sound like you like pop music, do you think you’d come along and see Nicholas playing the piano? Would you like to do that?
MARIA Yes, definitely.
SIMON There you go.
NICHOLAS I’d love to have you there darling.
KATE Has Hannah become your friend?
MARIA Yes.
KATE And what do you like about Hannah? Is that a difficult question?
MARIA Yeah it is.
SIMON It’s quite personal as well.
KATE It’s quite personal.
SIMON Yeah, what do you like about me Kate? HANNAH Come on Maria, you must like something!
KATE I feel like there’s maybe nothing Hannah I’m afraid.
HANNAH Is it my dance moves?
MARIA She’s fun to go out with.
KATE Well, I mean that’s what you want in a gig buddy really isn’t it, somebody who’s fun to go out with.
SIMON Absolutely.
KATE Now Hannah, why did you volunteer for this?
HANNAH Well, I work with children and young people with special needs in my work life anyway and I heard about the organisation, I thought it was a really great idea and I’ve always volunteered for lots of different things so I’m kind of a bit of a volunteer addict and it looked like a really fun thing to do for me as well.
SIMON Which is a good answer. Is it not that you can get to go and see concerts for free? Is that not part of the thing?
NICHOLAS It’s a perk of the job. HANNAH Yeah.
SIMON Yeah, I think.
HANNAH Yeah, I think if you’re volunteering you should definitely…
SIMON Get into it.
HANNAH Yeah, get into it yourself. I think that’s why I like it the most because I get something out of it, Maria gets something out of it and we both have a good time and we get to go to gigs together and we do have fun.
KATE Maria, what happens when you go out? What’s your favourite thing to do?
MARIA Clubbing.
KATE What do you do in the clubs?
MARIA I dance.
HANNAH Maria likes to have dance-offs with people. She can catch their eye, she’ll challenge them to a duel. KATE And who normally wins Maria?
MARIA Me.
HANNAH Every time.
MARIA Yeah.
KATE Excellent.
SIMON I think the gig buddy should be reversed as well, I had tickets to go and see an ’80s band called Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark and nobody I knew wanted to come with me.
KATE Yeah, I don’t even know who that is, so…
NICHOLAS Blank face from me as well I’m afraid.
KATE Yeah, sorry.
HANNAH So you’re saying you need a gig buddy?
SIMON No, but what happened, a friend of a friend did know somebody and this person happened to have autism, they were my gig buddy and came along with me.
HANNAH So you had someone to go with?
SIMON Yeah, I wanted someone who was going to enjoy it, not someone like Kate or Nicholas who would go, “I don’t want to be here, I don’t know this music.” So it worked out perfectly, but it is important…
HANNAH Yeah, not a one-way thing.
SIMON Exactly, I think that works. Maria, I hear you’re going to Glastonbury this year?
MARIA Yeah.
SIMON That sounds a little bit exciting, I’ve never been. Who are you most looking forward to seeing?
MARIA Adele, Ellie Goulding, Years and Years.
KATE She’s got good taste.
SIMON Yeah. NICHOLAS That’s a very good musical taste there Maria, I’m liking the soundtrack.
MARIA And Beyoncé.
KATE Oh, and Beyoncé of course.
RUTH Beyoncé is queen.
SIMON So I’ve heard three out of four of those, I still don’t know who Years and Years are.
NICHOLAS You’ll love them.
SIMON Will I?
KATE They’re a very trendy young band.
NICHOLAS They’re great.
SIMON Okay, I’ll check them out, thanks everybody.
KATE Yeah. So Hannah, did you have to do training to become a volunteer? Did you just get stuck in? How does it work? HANNAH Yeah, everyone who becomes a gig buddy goes on a one-day training, it’s mostly sort of safeguarding and talking about different situations you might face depending on who you get paired with and how you might overcome those difficulties or situations that arise.
SIMON And Gig Buddies is the brainchild of Paul Richards. I understand Paul’s lurking in the background, I think I heard your laughter there, Paul.
HANNAH He is here.
SIMON It’s part of the bigger Stay Up Late campaign. Remind us what that is Paul.
PAUL Stay Up Late was started, I was the bass player in the punk band, Heavy Load and three of the members of Heavy Load had learning disabilities and we got fed up with seeing people leaving our gigs at nine o'clock just as soon as we got on the stage and we never for once considered it was anything to do with our rather chaotic and, you know, peculiar performances, we thought maybe something else was going on and it was about inflexible support which it was. And Stay Up Late spread, we’ve been a charity for about four years, and the idea is just to challenge and change inflexible support systems that institutionalise people, whether they’re living in a one bedroom flat or a massive place, you know, you can easily create little institutions.
SIMON I’ve come across it once or twice and the idea that nine o'clock, that means your evening’s over, no independence, it makes me feel really awkward.
KATE Yeah, done. Home time.
PAUL Yeah, I mean I always say there’s two reasons why you should leave a gig at nine o'clock, because you’re tired or because the band’s crap.
KATE You have been gig buddies for a year now. Maria, how does it feel to have a gig buddy, how has your life changed?
MARIA It’s great fun.
KATE And do you get out more often?
MARIA Yeah.
KATE And do you stay out late?
MARIA Yeah.
KATE What time do you get home from a night out?
HANNAH Yeah, probably between midnight and one in the morning, depending on the gig or the night of the week, because I have a job so I can’t always stay out that late.
KATE Is Maria always wanting to stay out later than you then Hannah?
HANNAH Yes! I’m a bit of a wimp, but I try.
MARIA Yes, she is.
SIMON Hannah, you’re sort of defeating the purpose here. So stay out late but not too late because I’m a little bit tired. What’s going on?
KATE Would you like the Gig Buddies at your concerts, would you like to see some of that?
NICHOLAS 100%, I’ll be giving VIP tickets to all of them if they want to come, that would be a pleasure.
HANNAH Okay, shall we go Maria?
MARIA Yeah, definitely.
NICHOLAS Lovely, it would be lovely to have you there. KATE Excellent. Thank you Maria, Hannah and Paul, it was lovely to speak to you.
HANNAH Thank you, nice to speak to you too.
PAUL Thank you.
MARIA Thank you, bye.
SIMON Bye-bye.
KATE Coming up at the end of the show…
[music]
KATE That’s ‘Welcome to Reality’ which I feel like I just got a little welcome to reality there.
SIMON A blast of, yeah.
KATE The latest track from New York hip-hop band, Four Wheel City. Now nobody can say we are not diverse in our musicality today.
SIMON We often have rap at the end though don’t we? KATE We do often have rap but not generally with a concert pianist in the show as well.
SIMON Got you, nice touch.
KATE Yeah.
SIMON As we mentioned earlier we at Ouch have known of Ruth Madeley for a decade but she’s come a long way since then.
KATE Since work experience.
SIMON That’s what we like to do, give them a start don’t we?
KATE Yeah we do, we launch careers.
SIMON Since that breakthrough role or breakout role as we call it, she’s been in CBCC’s ‘Half Moon Chronicles’, E4 drama ‘Fresh Meat’ and will soon star in the new ITV crime drama, ‘The Level’.
KATE Ruth got her big break recently however as Anna in the Bafta winning BBC Three drama, ‘Don’t Take My Baby’. I’m so jealous, I’ve always wanted to win a Bafta. In it a physically disabled mum, played by Ruth, and a visually impaired dad are assessed by a social work team on their ability to care for their new baby daughter. Now it’s on iPlayer until mid-August so please check it out if you haven’t already, it’s brilliant. I don’t know why you wouldn’t have watched it but if you’re like Simon…
SIMON The confession was because of what we do it’s constant disability, disability, disability and then when it came out I thought I don’t know if I want to watch some blooming drama as well, that’s why I missed it.
KATE Miserable disability drama, is that what you thought?
RUTH No, I get that, I get that.
NICHOLAS Some Bafta award winning…
SIMON They’d even got the Bafta at that point.
RUTH It’s all right Simon, I’m not offended at all.
SIMON No, no, no and then I got back late last night and Emma said, “You’ve got to watch it”, and I was like, oh thanks Emma, and so I put it on and then there’s that opening little bit that just establishes both of you, it’s sexy, it’s cool, there’s some mystery about you, and then I just loved it, absolutely loved it.
RUTH Oh, thank you. SIMON No, it was awesome.
RUTH Thank you very much.
SIMON It’s very emotionally charged. Victoria Wright who’s a mum with a disability tweeted at the time, “Brilliant work BBC Three with ‘Don’t Take My Baby’ highlighting the intense scrutiny disabled people go through after having children.” Of course that’s not everyone’s experience thankfully.
KATE No, I’m glad about that because I’m about to be a mum and yeah, my wife and I both have disabilities so that’s going to be fun. I remember sitting and watching it with Holly and both of us sort of looked at each other and said, “Oh gosh, you know, are we going to have to go through that? Is it going to be like that?”
SIMON Just from friends and family I’d imagine.
KATE Yeah, just from our mums saying, “You can’t do this.”
SIMON Ruth, what sort of feedback did you get after it was aired?
RUTH You know something, I was completely overwhelmed by how great the response was from everyone. I had some really lovely tweets and press articles as well and a lot of people were saying how shocked they were at the statistics of this happening every year, it’s over 10,000 cases that are brought to Social Services like this every year.
KATE That is a huge amount of people.
RUTH I know, I was really shocked, I mean I knew it was, I think, I didn’t realise just how many cases there were. So to bring that to the forefront of people’s minds was great for us.
SIMON The beauty of the show or sorry, the drama, was this kind of flip-flop, I knew my positon or what I thought I knew at the beginning and then flip-flopped throughout but…
RUTH Yeah, I think the great thing about the piece was the director, writer, producer, everybody wanted to make it, I guess a very unbiased piece where people could see both sides of the argument and at the end people would decide, oh I don’t know whether they should have kept the baby or people saying yes of course they should have kept the baby and it was just a conversation that needed to be started and I think they achieved that.
SIMON I mean but 3,000 is it that disabled parents have their child taken away, so 11,000 are assessed, I’m trying to put a silver lining on it or a spin, that 8,000 do keep their baby, but you’ve got to watch the drama because then you kind of see the stress of this. Shall we have a listen? That might be an idea, shall we have a little listen to a clip? ANNA (RUTH) [music] I’m sorry if being our daughter is giving you challenges in life. There are times when I feel so stuck in this chair and I hope you never feel stuck with us because we’d never want that.
SIMON That was you doing a little sort of video diary for your daughter in the future. How did you prepare for ‘Don’t Take My Baby’?
RUTH For me the writing was incredible, Jack Thorne is pretty much a genius so the script was incredible to work with anyway, but I guess I don’t have children of my own but my sister has a little boy and I just really kind of, well followed her around for quite a while, just watching how she is with him every day and really kind of understanding that bond. And I guess I learnt a lot from my mum as well.
KATE I assume she’s not disabled though, your sister?
RUTH No, she isn’t no, but personally I don’t know that many disabled parents, so I had to go with what I had to hand.
SIMON What did you feel about being a young disabled woman who you may well have considered children? Doing that role did it kind of affect your personal view as well?
RUTH Yeah, again, because of the number of cases like this a year I was particularly shocked by that and it does make you think, oh my goodness, is this something that me and my boyfriend are going to have to deal with when we decide to have children, is it right for me to want to have children? All that kind of stuff, it makes you question an awful lot but it was the best opportunity I’ve ever had both as an actress but also just personally, just to be able to explore that and share that story with so many people on such a high level.
KATE So you’ve got spina bifida and Anna’s character has like a muscle wasting condition.
RUTH Yes.
KATE Did it feel weird playing somebody who had a different disability?
RUTH Yeah, and I loved that to be fair, I mean I’m not going to sit here for one minute and say that I’m an expert on every disability out there, I’m not, so it was really interesting to explore something that was completely different than the disability I had. Anna has no use of her legs at all and she had very little use of her arms, so it was very new to have to sit there and remember that this character doesn’t have as much mobility as I do.
KATE Did you have any qualms about, you’re not really cripping up but you are kind of cripping up?
SIMON Yeah, it’s a fake, you’re a fake.
KATE Yeah, you’re kind of faking the disability again and also much to Simon’s distress this morning I had to reveal to him that the visually impaired male in the drama, I can’t remember his name?
RUTH Adam Long, he played Tom, yeah.
SIMON I was just lapping up every moment of this, and then I said, oh this reminds me of my friend, Liam O’Carroll who’s a blind guy who’s married to a blind woman and they’ve had a baby and then Liam pops up and I said, this programme is so authentic they’ve even got the dad to have the visual impairment, but then I found out this morning he hadn’t.
KATE Yeah, that your co-star did not actually have a disability.
RUTH No he didn’t, no.
KATE Did you mind that? Was that an issue for you?
RUTH Not personally for me, I mean I’m not a casting director, I don’t make those calls but Adam was an absolute joy to work with and he made the whole process so much easier for me as an actress to be able to work with him, he’s done so many amazing things, so he was just an absolute joy to work with.
SIMON So they did really look very hard for a blind actor who had the talent and the age and all the other profiles, so it wasn’t for want to trying, put it that way. We talked about Jack Thorne being an awesome writer and there was something familiar because he wrote ‘The Secret Life of Sugar Water’ which I saw in Edinburgh, and that’s another two young beautiful disabled people. We hear you’re writing and something I love, comedy, are you writing a comedy series?
RUTH I’m currently working on a couple of different things really, nothing that I’m confident in sharing yet, but we’re getting there slowly, it’s just really nice to be able to explore different sides of the TV world, comedy, drama, lots of different things.
SIMON You’re being very showbiz and elusive.
RUTH Oh, do you like that? That was exactly what I was going for.
KATE Very elusive.
SIMON What about a pilot, did I hear you did a pilot? Can you talk about that?
RUTH I did do a pilot of something that I co-wrote a few years back, hopefully maybe something that could be taken forward in the future, you never know. But I am working on some new stuff as well.
KATE And we’ve been listening back to your first appearance on Ouch…
RUTH Oh god. KATE …as you knew we would.
RUTH Is that the time? I really have to shoot.
KATE Back when you were at the ripe old age of 19.
RUTH Oh goodness.
KATE As well as making you get our demanding difficult producers, Damon and Emma, coffee, we asked you to come up with some ideas for this show and you suggested we ask disabled people what they say to nosy members of the public who ask how they became disabled and I think we’ve got your response to that question.
RUTH What did I say?
KATE Well let’s find out.
RUTH [clip] I was shot.
MATT You were shot?
RUTH In the ghetto. MATT You were shot in the ghetto?
RUTH U-huh.
MATT Okay.
LIZ Was that painful?
RUTH It was.
LIZ Who by?
MATT Was it your mother?
RUTH Well they’re still looking for them. Well actually no, we tell people it was my best friend and now she’s my carer and looks after me.
MATT Oh that’s a good story, that’s very good, yes. [end of clip]
RUTH Immense sense of pride happening over here right now. Wow.
SIMON Your acting ability was shining through already then. RUTH Clearly. It had Bafta written all over it didn’t it, let’s face it.
KATE Yeah, and that was in the golden days of Matt and Liz wasn’t it Simon?
SIMON Mm-mm bring them back, bring them back. Nicholas, do you have a one-liner when some member of the public asks a really awkward question?
NICHOLAS Well I used to, when I was a child I used to say, especially when children said, “Oh, why have you only got one arm?” I used to say, “Well I was in Florida with my parents on holiday and it was a shark attack.”
RUTH I use shark attack sometimes.
NICHOLAS Oh, it’s so dramatic isn’t it, because being born with one hand, I mean it’s very boring really.
RUTH I know, when you say you were born with your disability it’s like, oh okay.
NICHOLAS They glaze over. I find people are like oh okay, it’s boring, yeah whereas if I’m like well it was a horrific shark attack it’s so much more interesting.
RUTH I completely agree, yeah. KATE I often say, “Oh I was that, do you not remember that newspaper story of the Olympic skier who had a terrible accident and then became disabled? That was me.” And then people go, “Oh gosh yeah, I think I remember that, I think I remember it!” And I’m like, yeah, yeah ‘course you do.
[Jingle: Now it’s time for Vegetable, Vegetable or Vegetable.]
KATE Simon, it’s back, the quiz where we get a caller on the line and bust a gut trying to guess their impairment.
SIMON Sarah is on the phone, do not mention your impairment Sarah, but how are you, where are you?
SARAH Hello. Okay, I’ll do my best. I’m currently living with my parents at the… you see, I have trouble with my words, at the Ancestral in Shrewsbury.
SIMON Is that a clue, that thing?
KATE Yeah.
SIMON Don’t tell us yet though.
KATE She’s living with her parents and she has problems with her words. Interesting. See? I’m already on it. Okay, I am going to read the rules so everybody around the table…
SIMON There’s rules?
KATE There are rules, many rules, everyone’s playing. Nicholas…
SIMON Ruth. Stand by.
KATE Ruth, Simon. Stand by ready for the rules. Vegetable, Vegetable or Vegetable is a clever disability interpretation of the parlour game, Animal, Vegetable or Mineral. In the game two hosts of the Ouch talk show have, well actually in the game everyone on the Ouch talk show has 90 seconds to guess what’s wrong with the disabled caller on the line by asking a series of fiendishly intelligent questions. The caller must answer only yes or no. It’s both classic and therapeutic.
SIMON To take part in this inclusive game the rules clearly state you have to be disabled. Sarah, are you disabled?
SARAH Yes.
KATE Nicholas and Ruth, are you ready to help Simon and I out with this? We have 90 seconds so are you ready?
RUTH Go for it. NICHOLAS I’m ready.
KATE All right, ready. Time starts now.
SIMON Is it physical?
SARAH Yes, in part.
KATE Oh, in part. Is it generative?
SARAH No.
NICHOLAS Can you move around easily?
SARAH Using a wheelchair.
KATE Ruth?
RUTH Are your other senses heightened?
SARAH Some of them.
KATE Oh. SIMON Has it got a common name or is it a complex Latin name?
SARAH It hasn’t got a Latin name.
KATE I can’t think of a question. Anyone else?
NICHOLAS So does it affect your legs?
SARAH Oh… I have got that too.
RUTH Oh, that too?
KATE Have you got more disabilities than just one?
SARAH I have.
SIMON And so what about mental stuff as in mental health?
SARAH I have experienced that.
KATE Ruth, Ruth?
RUTH Oh my god, this is so hard. SIMON Do we just start throwing things out there?
RUTH Can you use your hands and arms easily?
SARAH Yes.
RUTH Right.
KATE Do you live with your parents because of your disability, you can’t live on your own?
SARAH Yes.
SIMON Oh we are really bad, so okay so is it like multiple sclerosis?
SARAH No.
KATE Is it Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome? Just because I have it.
SARAH No.
SIMON Nicholas? NICHOLAS [claxon] I can’t think of a question.
RUTH Muscular dystrophy?
SIMON Oh get out of here.
KATE Muscular dystrophy from Ruth.
SARAH No.
NICHOLAS Oh damn.
KATE Any more suggestions before…?
NICHOLAS You’re a very tricky one there!
KATE That’s our time.
SIMON Hey you know what? The people at home are going, “Losers,” and we before thought we would nail this in about 30 seconds. It’s horrendous.
NICHOLAS I was very confident. RUTH What does it begin with? What’s the letter it begins with?
SARAH It begins with the letter A.
KATE A.
RUTH I don’t know why I thought that would help me.
SIMON Hang on, so is it sort of Asperger’s or Autism?
SARAH Yes.
SIMON Ah!
KATE Too late Simon.
NICHOLAS Too. Late.
KATE Too late!
SIMON Actually she gave me the first letter, it doesn’t really count does it? KATE Yeah. There’s not a lot of disabilities other than Asperger’s and Autism that you could go for.
SIMON So hang on, but you were giving us all this physical multiple…
KATE What about the wheelchair?
SIMON Yeah, you’re messing us up man, you’re messing us up.
NICHOLAS Throwing us off the trail.
SARAH Yeah, and I wasn’t supposed to mention last time I had this congenital brain problem too. I was on this show five years ago or maybe six years ago.
SIMON So when you were on the show five or six years ago were you doing Veg, Veg, Veg and a different condition then?
SARAH It was ADN then but they thought that I had MS but I didn’t.
SIMON I thought you had MS and I’ve never even met you.
KATE So what do people say to you Sarah when they find out you’ve got Asperger’s? SARAH Usually, “But you can’t have.”
KATE Why not?
SARAH I know. “Because you’re so good at talking to people and you can look at people and you can go out.”
KATE So how does your Asperger’s sort of manifest itself then?
SARAH In some situations I just can’t speak to people at all, I get very anxious and sometimes I talk too much, usually about things that people aren’t interested in. I have a number of things that I like to do and in fact have to be told, right, leave that alone, stop playing your music, actually remember to eat and drink and I’ve had a lot of difficulties with friendships and I need organising. There’s lots to it.
KATE That’s fascinating.
SIMON Sarah, thank you so much for coming on, you are our first guest with our reviving Veg, Veg, Veg. What fun that was. If you are listening to this and think I’d like Kate and Simon and their guests to ask awkward questions you can, just email us, [email protected] or tweet us at bbcouch or Facebook or whatever and just volunteer for Vegetable, Vegetable, Vegetable.
KATE Or any other game we might dream up, who knows? SIMON I like it, I like it.
KATE Yeah.
SIMON It’s time to say goodbye. Goodbye and thank you Ruth.
KATE Thank you so much.
RUTH It’s been an absolute pleasure.
NICHOLAS It was nice to virtually meet you.
RUTH It was lovely to virtually meet you too and I can’t wait to hear more of your music.
NICHOLAS I’m going to follow you on Twitter.
RUTH Make sure you do, I will follow you back.
SIMON Thank you Nicholas for coming in to the studio.
NICHOLAS Thank you, it’s been a pleasure, thank you so much.
KATE Thanks to the team, Lee Kumutat, Kathleen Hawkins, Damon Rose and producer, Emma Tracey. The studio manager was Martin Appleby. Music this month is by Four Wheel City, a New York based rap duo who both became wheelchair users when they were shot in separate incidents.
SIMON Oh, a real story sometimes. Not Ruth’s story.
KATE Yeah, not a Ruth story. Their latest is an anti-gun violence anthem, ‘Welcome to Reality’. Until next time, goodbye.
SIMON Yo.
[music]