Limping Through Laughter
How stand-up comedy helped me open up about my disability.
From a very early age, I always liked to entertain others. I can remember on leaving nursery school (that’s kindergarten for those reading in the US), the farewell card from my teacher made reference to them expecting to see me on stage one day!
I never really knew of stand-up comedy as an art form until around age 14, when a friend of mine came over after school with a DVD of Lee Evans: XL Tour 2005. We put it on and I laughed so much the entire way through. The next day I went to the store after school and brought a copy for myself. I proceeded to watch that DVD repeatedly.
As my interest in stand-up grew, I discovered work by other British comedians, namely Peter Kay, Jack Dee, Ricky Gervaise, Russell Brand and Billy Connelly as well as the likes of Eddie Murphy, Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock from across the pond! The more I sat and studied these people, observed their day-to-day interactions and experiences, the more I began to think ‘I could give this a go!’
I began writing material in the crossover period of the end of college and the start of University — around age 17/18. I tried a few ‘bits’ out on some friends who thought it worked well and it was then that I thought... I best try this on an actual audience then!
I can remember deliberately choosing an open mic night far enough away from my house that would minimise the chance of someone I know seeing me completely bomb on stage, whilst making sure I didn’t incur a crazy amount of travel costs in the process. That plan completely went out of the window upon arrival, where I discovered somebody I was at university with was fucking the promoter of the event… Great!
The night in itself was… odd. It was a showcase event for a variety of talent to showcase their act, from musicians, to poets, to me doing 5 minutes of stand-up comedy. The event itself started with somebody (probably the aforementioned classmate) dancing in a giant chicken outfit, with absolutely no explanation!
The ‘room’ itself was just an area of a pub, there must have been around 35 people in the room. Some of whom clearly came with the intention of having a quiet drink and not wanting to be ‘entertained’!
From the hazy memory I have of that night about 11 years ago now, I remember the material being well-received by those who were listening but I somewhat rushed through my set out of complete nervousness! From there though, I began to network with promoters and other comics and began playing more and more nights around the country.
I saw my disability as something that made me ‘different’ and therefore would set my ‘act’ apart in some way from others. I never used to feel comfortable opening up about my cerebral palsy and often growing up would freeze in awkwardness should someone directly ask ‘Why do you walk like that?’
I decided that opening up with a string of jokes around living with a disability, for me, was nothing more than addressing ‘the elephant in the room’ — yes I do walk a bit funny, here’s why that is, and yes, you can laugh about it! It’s almost a prerequisite, if you will, to state to the audience that anything self-derogatory I say whilst on this stage is okay to be laughed at!
The problem on the flip side of that, of course, is people begin to think because you stand and take the piss out of yourself in front of an audience, that gives them a license to frankly say whatever the fuck they want to you in everyday situations.
Prime example: I had some material which revolved around some friends referring to me as ‘The Big JC’ — JC, standing for ‘Jimmy Crip’, this ‘bit’ revolved around confusion they encountered when people thought that by ‘Big JC’, they meant Jesus and not me. Anyway, because of that, people around University and social events would start to be like ‘It's the JC’ — which is partly how I coined the Twitter handle ‘ItstheJW’ (my actual initials) which many, many people still miss-read as ‘It’s The Jew’, but that’s a whole other story in itself! But I remember one day walking into a university building and a guy I hardly knew exclaimed ‘It’s James the cripple!’ Woah…. Time Out!
I can remember being a little taken aback by that introduction! Mainly because I hardly knew the guy and also the confusion as to how he thought that was an acceptable way to greet me. At the time I was walking alongside a female student who also had cerebral palsy. I remember him pulling me to one side a day later in an attempt to apologise, which went well until he referred to the other student as ‘that handicapped girl’… no my man, that ain’t cool!
It was that event that made me realise a lot of people take everything you say on stage very literally, when, the truth is with stand-up, there’s a lot of poetic license. Take that ‘JC’ bit, I referred to myself as ‘Jimmy Crip’ once when out drinking, a friend of mine then made the connection of JC also being the initials of Jesus… and there, the idea was born. The rest of the ‘bit’ was fictional, but I pulled in some other real-life encounters and span them a bit to fit the narrative of the material. Me and my friends weren’t really going around referring to myself as ‘The Big JC!’ — and actually, at 5ft 6, ‘Big’ is poetic license in itself!
The highlight of my stand-up journey was the solo show I wrote and performed; ‘Walking Tall, But Limping Slightly’. The process of putting that show together and being able to perform a full hour in front of a packed theatre is a memory that will stay with me forever.
Talking about my experience as a disabled person on stage certainly helped in making it easier for me to have conversations about my condition in workplaces and social situations in more recent years — in fact, in some situations, I even recycled the old material!
Whilst I haven’t performed comedy for 8 years now, the experience of sharing my journey with countless rooms full of strangers helped me to better explore my own disability identity, whilst also spreading awareness to a wider audience.
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