If These Spasms Could Speak

Robert Softley warns us that his speech impediment may make parts of his performance difficult to catch, which he finds strange because in his head he sounds "like Laurence Olivier." He needn't worry, because not only is every word clear, his tough and tender verbatim play—woven from interviews in which disabled people talk freely about their relationship with their bodies—is strikingly lucid.

Softley is a canny and engaging performer, switching effortlessly from cheeky charisma to poignant interrogation of his experiences living with cerebral palsy. The focus on body image is a smart piece of misdirection, because while the physical limitations Softley and his interviewees describe are recurrent themes, If These Spasms Could Speak is far more concerned with the way their bodies negotiate life; facing, overcoming or sinking under the familiar problems of love, sex, parenting and music festivals.

While many of the short monologues are brilliantly funny, such as one woman's celebration of her "awesome tits", the best moments are those in which Softley speaks in his own voice, particularly about that paradoxical visibility disabled people experience – that opacity that draws stares but not recognition or acknowledgement.

Though there are times in which the voices becomes fractionally too jumbled, in general Softley inhabits the voice and the physicality of his subjects with remarkable clarity and empathy. In a festival that still has questions to answer regarding accessibility (less than a third of all venues report wheelchair access), it's a pleasure to hear stories that are still often unspoken articulated so openly and so well.