Oily Cart:
Integrating disabled and non-disabled children and families as audiences

For nearly 40 years Oily Cart have been making shows for young children and families who have the most barriers to access, and so are most invisible in society and least catered for: those labelled as having profound and multiple learning disabilities. Striving to be genuinely engaging for these young people, who experience the world in a sensory way, rather than through verbal language, has led us to completely rip up the rule book of standard theatre! We have explored many different formats, all of which are highly flexible and responsive to who is in the room with us and their reactions to the work.

Our priority is the dignity for each audience member, so we will never do anything that is not genuinely relevant, or engaging to the families we meet. However, because of this very specialised way of working, we have, in the past had small audience numbers, sometimes even one family at a time in our shows. While this provides a very safe space, that truly celebrates that family’s way of being in the world, we could see that this did mean there were limited opportunities for integration with non-disabled children and families.

This has made us experiment with two strands of work in the last year – we are now offering both:

• Focused shows, for young people who need more space, extra processing time and more one to one contact to engage fully with a piece.
• Inclusive shows, which are made thinking about people with the most barriers first in the creative process, but then open to all.

By offering these two strands of work, we feel that we can offer our audiences more choice and deepen their connection and ways of engaging with our work. It means we are hopefully never making assumptions that ‘one size fits all’.

In trialing this new inclusive format, we have learnt a lot along the way, and expect to keep learning. To find a way of genuinely including everyone is an amazing aspiration, but very difficult to achieve. Here are some considerations we would offer to artists making similar attempts:

• Always think of those with the most barriers first in the process, but make sure there is enough to hold the theatre experience for everyone. The more engaged the adults are, the more interesting the children will find it
• Some access needs come into conflict with each other – for example, some people need high intensity sensory input like loud, vibrating sound sources, to engage, while others are sound sensitive. Try to build in ways people can control their sensory input during a show. This should include options of making things heavier, louder and higher intensity.
• Make sure you always provide thorough and creative preparation materials such as social stories, and a quiet space at every venue. This is not an add on but essential for some people to be able to enjoy and access a show.
• There will always be some people who cannot make it to the show on that day, in that place, at that time – ideally you would have an online or at home version that is of equal quality, so these families do not miss out (especially now as many are still shielding).