As disability rights increasingly come under fire, Time & Again Theatre Company is has a new production under way that they hope will match the success of their multi-award-winning EARWIG.
Radical storytelling, defiant humour, and unapologetic accessibility
VILE is a furious and funny subversion of traditional period drama that stands firmly against the rising tide of cuts and discrimination faced by disabled people, particularly in the light of the government’s proposed reforms to Personal Independence Payment (PIP) and increased scrutiny, erasure and barriers to vital support.
It's set against the backdrop of Henry VIII’s chaotic court and reframes the story of Jane Boleyn (the infamous sister-in-law of Queen Anne Boleyn) to explore what it means to live with an invisible disability in a world that refuses to understand it. The famous historical narrative is seen through a disabled lens and stands against a system that continues to question the legitimacy of both visible and invisible conditions and the people who live with them. At a time when hard-won rights are under threat, this anarchic reimagining of Tudor history pushes back with radical storytelling, defiant humour, and unapologetic accessibility.
Founded in 2017, Time & Again use historical settings to explore urgent contemporary themes. The production has been developed with support from Cast and The Lowry, as well as the charity OCD UK. VILE is written by award-winning playwright Laura Crow (pictured) who was inspired by her own health anxiety and experience of OCD combined with knowing how access and understanding around invisible disability is still lagging sadly behind.
“I discovered Jane Boleyn when I was a teenager; chronically ill, unable to attend school, and eagerly devouring the spate of Tudor media that proliferated in the mid-2000s,” says writer Crow. “I'd just been diagnosed with OCD so the suggestion of Jane’s madness - how it was used to blame her for the tyrannical actions of powerful men - shocked and intrigued me. It began to feel increasingly vital that I reclaimed Jane's narrative, just as the 21st century world made it increasingly necessary for me to fight for my own rights. It feels so important, as a writer, to allow disabled and queer characters to take up room in eras they are so often erased from.”
VILE is proudly disabled-led, created by a cast and team with lived experience of disability, neurodivergence and chronic illness, and further developed with input from the disabled community. Creative access is embedded in the show’s design, including captions, an integrated audio description and innovative animated projections that immerse audiences in the chaos and intrigue of the Tudor court.
