From the liberation of the electric wheelchair to the ignominy of discrimination and incarceration, there have been both great advances and terrible setbacks for disabled people in Britain over the last fifty years.

Hard-hitting and hilarious, personal and poignant, CripTales comprises six fictional monologues portraying some very real experiences. From negotiating friendships and personal assistants, navigating the benefits system, and experiencing sexual fulfilment, they challenge the view that having a disability is a problem or ‘not normal’. Normal doesn’t exist!

CripTales was commissioned by the BBC and broadcast on BBC Four and BBC America in 2020 to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of the UK’s Disability Discrimination Act, which criminalised discrimination against disabled people in many areas of life. The production had disabled people at its core — as writers, directors and actors of all six monologues.

Mat Fraser, the series’ Creative Director, said, ‘Disabled voices have been shut out of mainstream TV drama for too long and this is a chance to showcase some of the wonderful, inventive, funny, dramatic, sexy and sobering potential available… We called the series CripTales, as the word ‘crip’ has been taken by the disabled community as a self-empowering title since the late ’80s, and these are authentic stories and tales from people who identify as Deaf and Disabled people and who are embedded in disabled community.’

This volume comprises:

Thunderbox by Genevieve Barr

Audition by Mat Fraser

Paper Knickers by Jackie Hagan

The Shed by Matilda Ibini

Hamish by Jack Thorne

The Real Deal by Tom Wentworth

Mat Fraser

Books