★★★
Laws may get a pang of remembrance if he reads this review. It was me in the front row, about to have a meltdown over the sensory overwhelm of the Monkey Barrel’s horrendous acoustics. At first Stuart falls into typical stand-up crowd work patter ‘I can tell from your body language that you’re not enjoying it’ as I try not to freak out. To his credit, he did ask if I was alright, and said it’s okay to move. But Laws tried to cover for what is, essentially, something he has no control over. That most venues at the fringe are inaccessible. That, coupled with a lack of understanding around accessibility, and what he must deal with as an autistic performer – no wonder so many us disabled people, rightly complain about the fringe.
Laws constructs his hour around ‘laying his cards on the table’, this is done literally, with actual cards, each with questions or prompts. His tangential enquiries lead him to talk about visiting seven continents, unfortunate relationships and his ‘confirmed’ autism. You sometimes wonder if autism jokes are for us autistics or is Laws ‘playing to the neurotypicals’, I was glad when Laws made the distinction, and made a light barb at our allistic cousins. I think he could go much further with this.
I do think it needs to be said that, whether you intend it or not, disclosing that you’re neurodiverse will mean you will attract a more neurodiverse audience, most of whom will expect you have thought about accessibility. So many hack reviewers have made ableist remarks about ‘oh comedians are trying to get neurodiverse cache now’ and whilst that is offensive and crass, what is happening is that this openness (which is awesome) means others feel seen and want to be part of the experience, if only we could be more accommodated.
Stuart Laws Has to Be Joking? is on at Monkey Barrel – The Hive until August 25th
