June 11, 2025 • 30 mins
A conversation with a deep thinker in a wheelchair on a sunny afternoon. "What does it mean to be vulnerable, what does it mean to be disabled, in a society that is constantly obsessed with success and measures of it? What does it mean to not measure your life by those metrics... it depends on whether you see vulnerability as inherently bad or problematic..." #otherlivesareavailable #podcast #eastlondon #theatredirector
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
I get asked for my opinion a lot.
Why do you get asked for your opinion a lot?
Because I have one, I guess. But I feel like, yeah, if you,
if you have one and someone has some space to fill and wants to
pose an interesting question, then yeah.
(00:21):
And what they know that I can talk for England about things
I'm interested in. What helps you form an opinion?
Are you someone who could have carefully looks at all the
different things and measures itall out?
Or are you someone who's like gut instinct?
A bit of both really. I usually have my own personal
(00:43):
opinion and then sort of like any sensible person, realise
that it's only mine and so therefore look for other schools
of thought and yeah, sort of realising that opinion's
malleable as well. Like you don't have to have one.
(01:04):
We grow and change all the time.We're informed by what we here
see, interpret, think, you know,social interaction.
So I don't think of my opinion as something that's ever fixed
because we're always absorbing information in different ways
(01:26):
all the time. Does that make sense?
Yeah, it does. I was just thinking about we, we
kind of admire people who have astandpoint and hold to it.
That's one thing that we kind oftaught.
It's good to stand by your, your, your, your morals and, and
kind of have a standpoint, but it doesn't.
(01:49):
You've got to be open to other points of view.
Yeah. What?
What? At what point does it become
willful ignorance? You know, like it's OK to stand
by your opinions, and you should, but you should also be
open to bending them, otherwise you'll soon run out of ideas.
(02:12):
So if people are all, if people come to you because you're
somebody's good for the chat, Yeah.
And somebody's got angles and stuff.
Yeah. This must mean that you're a big
thinker. Yeah, I mean, I'm severely
disabled and fairly static, so you spend a lot of time in your
own head just by the nature of that beast, I think.
(02:35):
But you know, some people can both around taking absolutely
nothing from life. So it depends on your
personality and also my parents,I guess.
I guess I was encouraged to think and have an opinion, which
helps for sure. When you say you're severely
(02:55):
disabled, could you describe forpeople listening what that
means? Yeah, so I'm, I've got a severe
cerebral palsy, which means I'm confined to electric power chair
most of the time. And that affects my posture and
sort of my, yeah, my posture andmy, I have to do 24 hour posture
(03:20):
management and pain management as well, just from being static
and getting older and, you know,lots of variables really.
But yeah, something I was born with.
So it's due to premature birth. I was born 3 1/2 months early.
And you talked about the pain. What kind of pain are we
(03:41):
talking? We talk about sharp pain.
Are we talking about dull pain? How would you describe?
It now I have a lot of muscle pain, and I also suffer from
scoliosis, which is curvature ofthe spine, which as I get older,
is starting to cause complications with my nerves and
organs. So it's something that they
monitor. Yeah.
(04:03):
But some of it is just aging as well.
So it's hard to know where the intersection sort of exists.
Yeah, whether it's disability orjust getting old.
Getting old. We're all getting old, yeah.
Exactly. We're getting old all the time.
So yeah, I think it's a mixture of lots of things.
But if you're born with a disability, it's you get used to
(04:26):
it like anything. When you've got a disability, do
you feel you have to represent all the time and is it a bit
tiring to like why do I have to have an opinion about this?
Why can't I just be allowed to have a free ranging opinion but
because of my disability I'm expected to frame it within a
certain? That's a great question.
(04:49):
I pride myself on also being able to live a banal existence
like we're not all Paralympians,right.
So I think there is there is value in seeing that everyday is
kind of beautiful and normal. And yeah, to be able to see when
(05:13):
parity and inclusion and all that sort of thing is important,
but also to acknowledge our differences, disabled people and
our right to be vulnerable. I think.
I think if you always measure yourself against other people,
you can forget about your own personal vulnerability and the
importance of being able to accept that as it is.
(05:38):
That phrase our right to be vulnerable.
I've not heard that before. That's an interesting one.
Yeah. It's something that I think
about a lot because I have a lotof friends who are in disability
who are very successful. You know, they're successful by
any measure. They have, you know, children, a
house, a car, good job. And they've always fought for
(06:03):
parity in the system. But what kind of parity are we
looking for? Are we looking for parity and
economic opportunity? Are we looking for political
parity? Are we looking for social
parity? What, what does it mean to be
the same as everyone else, quoteUN quote?
So I've always thought that was an interesting thing.
(06:26):
And then the flip side of that is what does it mean to be
vulnerable? Then?
What does it mean to be disabledin a society that is constantly
obsessed with success and measures of it?
What? What does it mean to them?
Not measure your life by those metrics.
And vulnerability in in our society today, being emotionally
(06:51):
vulnerable is seeing a is seen as a positive.
But the word vulnerable, nobody wants to feel vulnerable in a
physical sense. It's kind of it depends where
you put the vulnerability as to how you see.
It and it depends on whether yousee vulnerability as inherently
bad or problematic. Like it's OK to be, to not know
(07:16):
and to, you know, suffering is part of the human condition.
So does that mean it's wrong or that we should avoid it?
I don't know. But it's certainly things that I
think about. Yeah.
Especially as you when you're really disabled, you become more
aware of your mortality. So these existential
(07:39):
philosophical questions are kindof inevitable, really.
And yet you talked about earlierabout the banal existence and
how that's something that we should all be allowed to have
also and not feel that everything has to be meaningful.
Yeah, definitely. I mean, this might sound a bit
(08:00):
morbid, but I sort of think of life as inherently meaningless.
And then if you if you manage todeduce some meaning from it,
then that's a bonus. If everything is inherently
meaningless, it also takes the pressure off.
It means there's no pressure to be anybody.
(08:24):
And so in some ways, that's how I found my personal sense of
freedom. Yeah, if that makes any sense.
It does. I have to concentrate hard
because you're a deep thinker and there's a lot of ideas going
on you. Might discover that when you go
back and edit, it is actually just the ramblings of a
(08:44):
nonsensical idiot. So we'll see.
But I think, yeah, I don't know you.
You caught me in a contemplativestate because I was just sitting
in the sun, you know, I wasn't really doing anything.
Well, it's the time of day. The sun is kind of quite low in
(09:07):
the sky. It's an evening in east London.
We're in a park. There's people lying on the
ground. There's a bunch of kids in the
distance playing football. There's, there's a sense of
calm. I think everyone is taken in by
that calm. And I think it affects, you
know, what everyone's doing around us at the moment, isn't
it just sitting there and just thinking.
(09:30):
Yeah, the conditions are right. What jobs have you done and how?
How have they shaped you as a person?
So I started out as a child actor for the BBCI, was part of
a local Youth Theatre group called the Half Moon Young
People's Theatre in Stepney Green.
(09:52):
It's quite famous for having a mixed group.
So it has, you know, able bodiedgroups, disabled groups and
mixed groups. So I was in a mixed group.
They were looking for a particular type of person who
was in a wheelchair who could bein a a sitcom, who was Asian.
And they couldn't find anybody. And they were looking around all
(10:14):
the local kind of theatre groupsto see if there was anyone
willing to audition. And my mom's a freelance theatre
actor of 40 odd years. So she said you can go to the
audition if you want to, you know, Yeah.
I mean, you've seen me struggle as an actor, so it's entirely up
(10:35):
to you. When, when, when you say you
see, you see, she said. You've seen me struggle as an
actor. Is, is acting a life of
rejection in terms of auditions not getting parts?
Is that how she meant? Yeah, I think so.
I think because we've always nothad a great deal of cash.
Like sometimes we have, you know, the, the beauty of being a
(10:58):
freelancer is occasionally you can come into large sums of
money, but they have to last. You know, like unless your work
is consistent, you have to find a way of making that money
stretch. So we've always not had a great
deal of money. But it was more to do with also
(11:19):
like, do you want to be an actor?
Like you've seen how hard it canbe, as you say, like a life of
rejection. Do you really want to be part of
that as well at 13? You know, I didn't really know,
but I just thought it was a good.
I'll just give it a shot. So you went as a 13 year old,
(11:42):
you'd never been an actor before.
You went to the audition or you went to the play or, or to the
to the youth group that was doing it.
Yeah. You ticked the boxes that they
wanted. Yeah, being Asian and being in a
wheelchair. But I'm sure you didn't want to
fit into those boxes. But I, I am in those boxes, you
(12:04):
know, like it's one of those contradictory things.
It's like if that's the thing about what was used to be
referred to as positive discrimination, the way it came
about was to try and get give people who didn't have advantage
in the market some sort of leg up.
So, you know, there are positiveaspects to be put in, be put in
(12:28):
those boxes because we don't have the same employment as
Asian people or disabled people.So, you know, in a way it was
like, that's just what the role required.
So I didn't see it as a box. I just saw it as maybe I fit.
Yeah. And as a 13 year old, it's a
time of life. It's your first teenage year.
(12:51):
Yeah. There's lots of changes coming
up. You're young, you're full of
energy. You're full of, I don't know,
hope. Yeah.
Do you remember what it felt like when you started acting?
Yeah, I mean, I've always been abit of an old man, you know,
like even at like 10 years old, sort of old and grumpy.
(13:13):
Yeah. Not old and wise.
Oh well, both maybe. Yeah, grumpy and wise.
Also because I need to be cared for.
I need to know what to ask of people and spend a lot of time
around adults as a result of that.
So. So I think if you spend a lot of
(13:36):
time around adults and you have a severe disability, you
probably grow up faster than perhaps you should.
The when? When people have to care for
you, you say you have to be cared for.
How much do you have to rely on other people in your life?
Pretty much for everything. I mean, the way you see me now
(13:56):
is my most presentable and finished and put together, but
there's a lot of work behind thescenes from carers, from care
agencies and my mum's input thatyou don't see that, you know,
it's a bit like the theatre really, sort of rehearse and
(14:17):
then present it. I feel like I have to sort of
reveal myself every morning, youknow, whatever that might mean,
you know? But yeah, I think it it also
means that you have to be able to be comfortable around
(14:37):
strangers very fast and communicate your needs very
effectively from quite a young age.
So it it's kind of up to you to manage everyone around you
rather than everyone around you to manage you.
Yeah. I mean, when you're younger,
it's a bit of input from, you know, other people because you
(14:58):
don't necessarily know what you need.
But I think you realize pretty quickly that you ought to know
what you need, you know, as a disabled person in order to get
by. Because if you can't communicate
your needs then you're going to be stuck literally sometimes.
Do you basically have to have heightened senses in your world
(15:22):
to be very aware both of what your needs are, but be very
aware of how everyone is around you?
Or, or could you just like, not bother about it someday?
I think you do if you want to keep safe, right?
Like safe and healthy, Yes. And later after I became an
(15:43):
actor, I trained as a theatre. I got into drama school and did
ABA in directing so. Why the crossover?
Why? Why what?
What made you think acting's onething, directing's another?
Being directed I guess. As in, it's not a nice
experience. As in like that you as an actor,
(16:08):
you have to understand what the difference is because you've got
a, a role that is completely different to what a director
does. And in order to be able to take
direction from somebody, you sort of have to understand what
the point of it is. Otherwise you're just sort of
thinking, why is that person telling you what to do?
(16:28):
You know, especially at 13, you know, you, you don't understand
that that person's an overseer, somebody who, you know, is
trying to tell a story with a group of people and is an
outside eye. And you can only really
understand that as a teenager. I think by having someone do it
(16:50):
to you and then sort of thinking, oh, maybe I, maybe I'm
analytical enough to do that. My my job in a sense is to come
in often with a short amount of time and small budget and
determine what is needed to kindof turn the gas up underneath a
(17:12):
text or a piece of work. And being a director, you're
making decisions. It must affect like anyone in
any role of responsibility. The fact that you're making
decisions of people who are doing what you ask must in some
way affect how you view yourselfbecause you've you've been given
(17:33):
a position of power. So it must naturally increase
your confidence and increase your own thoughts that your
ideas are the best ideas, if that makes sense.
I think the key to being a good director is like, I love sort of
feeding back into what I was saying earlier is that your idea
(17:54):
is only one idea, but you have to know which are the ones to
follow up, you know, and which ones to discard.
But it's ultimately A collaborative process.
Some of the best ideas I've everhad in a production have not
come from me, you know? They've come from other people.
(18:15):
So it's about listening to thoseand being open to them and not
thinking that yours is the always the right one because
that will lead you down the garden path, you know, it's not
about having total convictions in your ideas always.
It's also about being malleable,you know, and you have to
realise as a director that you're nothing without actors.
(18:38):
You know, a rehearsal can't start without other people.
So in that way that gives you the humility hopefully required
to create a nice atmosphere in in rehearsals that is ultimately
creative. You know, because you can't
create under duress. But but you're under duress
(19:00):
because it's a theatre. There's there's a deadline,
there's a show star, there's an audience, there is pressure.
Yeah, I'm not saying it's a walkin the park, but I think it's,
it's, it's something that the more you do, the easier it
becomes, like anything, you know?
(19:20):
And I know that the pressure is not all mine, you know, like
when I get out, when I see the actors get up on stage for the
first time to do the first show,there's nothing I can do, you
know? So it's also about.
That that's all it at that point.
It's in their hands. Yeah.
(19:40):
So then it becomes about trust, you know, and believing in the
people that you work with. Yeah, first and foremost, when
we audition somebody for a part,we often give them the job
because we like them as people first.
I think you know the idea that. You know, we give people roles
(20:04):
just purely based on the work that's required.
It's only part of the other partis we have to be able to get on
with you for however, you know what I mean?
Like any job? Yeah, like any job interview.
So I think often the most giftedactors that I've come across are
also great people. It's not always the case, but
99% of the time. So don't try to fit in like what
(20:31):
we were talking about before. Don't try and fit into a box.
If someone wants to hire you, they're going to hire you.
You know, 70% because they like who you are.
We get in the way of ourselves because we we kowtow to
expectation and you should just be yourself.
(20:51):
Yeah, that sounds so wanky, but you know, that's it's true, you
know, like, you know, when people say, oh, when you go on a
date, just be yourself, Isn't that the hardest thing in the
world, like. Yeah, it's impossible.
Yeah, because we think that there's some magic to it.
You know, it's, it's actually easier than we make it out to
(21:15):
be. And the only reason we think
we're not being ourselves is because we're weighed down by
expectation. What if this person doesn't like
what I do or what I say or what I think, and that makes us act,
act differently to how we should?
Yeah, as I say, we get in the way of ourselves a lot.
(21:42):
What were you thinking about when I cycled past you?
What were you? You know, how have you spent
your day today? What kind of day has it been?
It's been an easy 1 today. Like because I, one of my things
being a severely disabled personis I fear being isolated.
So I always try and even when, you know, my friends aren't
(22:05):
around or my mum's got somethingto do, I try and go to places
where I will find people, even if I'm going to be by myself
because I also like to people watch because, you know, that's
part of performance as well. You know, like, I steal people's
(22:28):
walks, people characters and things like that.
Or just observe how people sit. Yeah.
Or, you know, I like, the reasonI gravitated towards the
performing arts was because I already did these things
naturally. You know, like, I like people.
I'm kind of intrigued by the human condition.
(22:51):
And so that lends itself to telling stories.
And part of that is being aroundpeople, even if you're by
yourself. When you initially come up to
me, I was like, oh, I thought you might be like some sort of
religious person, you know, likea like, like a sort of what I
would refer to as a God, bud. I was like, I was like, well,
(23:15):
what does this member of the church want?
And. And what would you have said to
me if I'd said to you? Have you thought about X or Y is
the answer. I would have said yeah I'm
already going to hell, so thanks.
Yeah, no, I'm being facetious, but to be honest, I, I'm open to
(23:36):
people talking to me so but I, Iam a Londoner, so I treat
everyone with a bit of automaticsuspicion.
I like that. I I, I like that phrase.
Automatic suspicion. As a Londoner, Why?
Why do you reckon that is? Is it because?
Is it because this is what's wrong with this city?
I think it's because people haveto keep, keep themselves safe,
(24:01):
you know? A bit of healthy suspicion is
good. Yeah.
Like if if you were the oppositeand just completely open to
everything and everyone, you'd soon find yourself in a mess.
Right. But it is about being in in an
individualistic society. You think, what does this person
want, you know, and in a way that's bad because sometimes
(24:25):
people don't want much, you know, like sometimes people just
want to chat or sit with you. You know, I often times I sit in
silence with my friends because I know them really well.
Like we don't have to fill the gaps, you know?
I think that thing about silencewith old friends is magical.
(24:47):
Yeah. Yeah.
And you can. You can't even really do with
people you know really well, because if you do with people
you don't, it's just simply awkward.
Yeah. Like if I if we sat here in
silence for 5 minutes because wedon't know each other, it'd
probably be a bit odd. Yeah.
We could try it, but. We could definitely try it.
At the same time, it's all aboutexploitation, right?
(25:08):
If you expect me to speak, then yeah.
But if I said to you we're goingto sit here in silence for 5
minutes and you can speak only if you want to, then it then the
pressure's off. You know, then you could sit
here for 5 minutes and I wouldn't think it was odd
because I've already, we've already agreed the parameters.
(25:31):
But I think of the thing about old friends is you have an
unspoken agreed parameter that you don't have to speak.
They also know that when I want to say me personally, when I
want to say something, I will. So, you know, they're probably
quite grateful for sitting in silence for 5 minutes.
Oh, really? Shut up.
(25:51):
Yeah. Like I've, I've never had, but
I, I can also do that as well. Like I think there's so much
value in being able to sit with your own thoughts.
And you know, I try to relish being bored as well, like I
think. That's an interesting one,
relatively, because most of us fear being bored.
Yeah, of course we do. That's why we have phones and,
(26:16):
you know, everything else. We, we're so afraid of our own
company, we'll do anything to detract from it.
Yeah, I think it's really important.
I think we've lost the ability to be OK with being bored.
I think being bored is useful ifyou're, if you're never bored,
you know, you'll never know whenit's good, right?
(26:37):
So what should I be doing that I'm not doing?
That's all expectation that onlystands us up for failure most of
the time. Like if we think we're being
unproductive all the time, then we're just creating an
expectation we can never fulfil.And I think that's part of the
problem with society is that we can't sit with ourselves, you
(27:01):
know? Yeah.
And like I said, because I'm forced to sit with myself.
Like, yeah, you've got no choice.
Yeah. So I can then advocate for it,
you know? You're an expert.
Yeah, I'm an expert. That's sort of being inside my
own head, for better or for worse.
(27:23):
You could turn that to your advantage, write a book about it
and make make yourself rich. I could, but then one, I don't
know if I'll it'll make me rich.Like to be rich in ideas is more
important. Secondly, I don't know if anyone
(27:44):
cares as much as I do. And you'll only find that out, I
guess, once you put a book out. But also the the like.
There's so many clever people inthe world who said more profound
things than I'll ever say, So amI just adding to the noise?
I don't know. Going back to the thing about
(28:09):
silence, people, people are listen people.
It might be one person, might benobody listening to this
podcast. Yeah, people are listening
because they don't want to be intheir own silence.
They want to be in somebody else's life.
And the point of this podcast isto give people access to
somebody else's live and thoughts and drop into their
life and, and and and and hear what they've got to say.
(28:32):
And so we we're always curious about other people.
I mean, you say you're, you're you're a people watcher, but
isn't it? Yeah, everyone's a people.
Everyone's curious, aren't they?Yeah, I'm just interested in
people. And like you said, I think we
all are, but we don't always know how to.
We're inquisitive, but we're notinquisitive enough often to ask,
(28:54):
you know, because that takes a different level of bottle and
confidence. I think the one thing that
theatre really did for me as a disabled person was bring me out
of myself. Because, you know, as a young
kid with a severe disability in a major city, you don't really
(29:14):
know what you're, you know, nobody teaches you how to never
get the system as a disabled person, and nobody teaches you
how to rub along so. So you got, you got to work out
yourself. Yeah, but, but, but that phrase
to rub along. Yeah, getting on with it.
Yeah, it's really important. Yeah.
(29:34):
But I don't say that in some sort of aspirational fashion,
like if you want to sit as a disabled person and do
absolutely nothing, because no one's ever doing absolutely
nothing, right? But if you want to sit with
yourself and be vulnerable, you should have that right.
(29:56):
Let's do an experiment, OK? We don't know each other.
Yeah. But let's sit here in silence,
OK? And see what happens.
See who breaks. First, it would definitely be
me, despite the suggestion. Yeah, cool.
I get asked for my opinion a lot.
Why do you get asked for your opinion a lot?
Because I have one, I guess. But I feel like, yeah, if you,
if you have one and someone has some space to fill and wants to
pose an interesting question, then yeah.
(00:21):
And what they know that I can talk for England about things
I'm interested in. What helps you form an opinion?
Are you someone who could have carefully looks at all the
different things and measures itall out?
Or are you someone who's like gut instinct?
A bit of both really. I usually have my own personal
(00:43):
opinion and then sort of like any sensible person, realise
that it's only mine and so therefore look for other schools
of thought and yeah, sort of realising that opinion's
malleable as well. Like you don't have to have one.
(01:04):
We grow and change all the time.We're informed by what we here
see, interpret, think, you know,social interaction.
So I don't think of my opinion as something that's ever fixed
because we're always absorbing information in different ways
(01:26):
all the time. Does that make sense?
Yeah, it does. I was just thinking about we, we
kind of admire people who have astandpoint and hold to it.
That's one thing that we kind oftaught.
It's good to stand by your, your, your, your morals and, and
kind of have a standpoint, but it doesn't.
(01:49):
You've got to be open to other points of view.
Yeah. What?
What? At what point does it become
willful ignorance? You know, like it's OK to stand
by your opinions, and you should, but you should also be
open to bending them, otherwise you'll soon run out of ideas.
(02:12):
So if people are all, if people come to you because you're
somebody's good for the chat, Yeah.
And somebody's got angles and stuff.
Yeah. This must mean that you're a big
thinker. Yeah, I mean, I'm severely
disabled and fairly static, so you spend a lot of time in your
own head just by the nature of that beast, I think.
(02:35):
But you know, some people can both around taking absolutely
nothing from life. So it depends on your
personality and also my parents,I guess.
I guess I was encouraged to think and have an opinion, which
helps for sure. When you say you're severely
(02:55):
disabled, could you describe forpeople listening what that
means? Yeah, so I'm, I've got a severe
cerebral palsy, which means I'm confined to electric power chair
most of the time. And that affects my posture and
sort of my, yeah, my posture andmy, I have to do 24 hour posture
(03:20):
management and pain management as well, just from being static
and getting older and, you know,lots of variables really.
But yeah, something I was born with.
So it's due to premature birth. I was born 3 1/2 months early.
And you talked about the pain. What kind of pain are we
(03:41):
talking? We talk about sharp pain.
Are we talking about dull pain? How would you describe?
It now I have a lot of muscle pain, and I also suffer from
scoliosis, which is curvature ofthe spine, which as I get older,
is starting to cause complications with my nerves and
organs. So it's something that they
monitor. Yeah.
(04:03):
But some of it is just aging as well.
So it's hard to know where the intersection sort of exists.
Yeah, whether it's disability orjust getting old.
Getting old. We're all getting old, yeah.
Exactly. We're getting old all the time.
So yeah, I think it's a mixture of lots of things.
But if you're born with a disability, it's you get used to
(04:26):
it like anything. When you've got a disability, do
you feel you have to represent all the time and is it a bit
tiring to like why do I have to have an opinion about this?
Why can't I just be allowed to have a free ranging opinion but
because of my disability I'm expected to frame it within a
certain? That's a great question.
(04:49):
I pride myself on also being able to live a banal existence
like we're not all Paralympians,right.
So I think there is there is value in seeing that everyday is
kind of beautiful and normal. And yeah, to be able to see when
(05:13):
parity and inclusion and all that sort of thing is important,
but also to acknowledge our differences, disabled people and
our right to be vulnerable. I think.
I think if you always measure yourself against other people,
you can forget about your own personal vulnerability and the
importance of being able to accept that as it is.
(05:38):
That phrase our right to be vulnerable.
I've not heard that before. That's an interesting one.
Yeah. It's something that I think
about a lot because I have a lotof friends who are in disability
who are very successful. You know, they're successful by
any measure. They have, you know, children, a
house, a car, good job. And they've always fought for
(06:03):
parity in the system. But what kind of parity are we
looking for? Are we looking for parity and
economic opportunity? Are we looking for political
parity? Are we looking for social
parity? What, what does it mean to be
the same as everyone else, quoteUN quote?
So I've always thought that was an interesting thing.
(06:26):
And then the flip side of that is what does it mean to be
vulnerable? Then?
What does it mean to be disabledin a society that is constantly
obsessed with success and measures of it?
What? What does it mean to them?
Not measure your life by those metrics.
And vulnerability in in our society today, being emotionally
(06:51):
vulnerable is seeing a is seen as a positive.
But the word vulnerable, nobody wants to feel vulnerable in a
physical sense. It's kind of it depends where
you put the vulnerability as to how you see.
It and it depends on whether yousee vulnerability as inherently
bad or problematic. Like it's OK to be, to not know
(07:16):
and to, you know, suffering is part of the human condition.
So does that mean it's wrong or that we should avoid it?
I don't know. But it's certainly things that I
think about. Yeah.
Especially as you when you're really disabled, you become more
aware of your mortality. So these existential
(07:39):
philosophical questions are kindof inevitable, really.
And yet you talked about earlierabout the banal existence and
how that's something that we should all be allowed to have
also and not feel that everything has to be meaningful.
Yeah, definitely. I mean, this might sound a bit
(08:00):
morbid, but I sort of think of life as inherently meaningless.
And then if you if you manage todeduce some meaning from it,
then that's a bonus. If everything is inherently
meaningless, it also takes the pressure off.
It means there's no pressure to be anybody.
(08:24):
And so in some ways, that's how I found my personal sense of
freedom. Yeah, if that makes any sense.
It does. I have to concentrate hard
because you're a deep thinker and there's a lot of ideas going
on you. Might discover that when you go
back and edit, it is actually just the ramblings of a
(08:44):
nonsensical idiot. So we'll see.
But I think, yeah, I don't know you.
You caught me in a contemplativestate because I was just sitting
in the sun, you know, I wasn't really doing anything.
Well, it's the time of day. The sun is kind of quite low in
(09:07):
the sky. It's an evening in east London.
We're in a park. There's people lying on the
ground. There's a bunch of kids in the
distance playing football. There's, there's a sense of
calm. I think everyone is taken in by
that calm. And I think it affects, you
know, what everyone's doing around us at the moment, isn't
it just sitting there and just thinking.
(09:30):
Yeah, the conditions are right. What jobs have you done and how?
How have they shaped you as a person?
So I started out as a child actor for the BBCI, was part of
a local Youth Theatre group called the Half Moon Young
People's Theatre in Stepney Green.
(09:52):
It's quite famous for having a mixed group.
So it has, you know, able bodiedgroups, disabled groups and
mixed groups. So I was in a mixed group.
They were looking for a particular type of person who
was in a wheelchair who could bein a a sitcom, who was Asian.
And they couldn't find anybody. And they were looking around all
(10:14):
the local kind of theatre groupsto see if there was anyone
willing to audition. And my mom's a freelance theatre
actor of 40 odd years. So she said you can go to the
audition if you want to, you know, Yeah.
I mean, you've seen me struggle as an actor, so it's entirely up
(10:35):
to you. When, when, when you say you
see, you see, she said. You've seen me struggle as an
actor. Is, is acting a life of
rejection in terms of auditions not getting parts?
Is that how she meant? Yeah, I think so.
I think because we've always nothad a great deal of cash.
Like sometimes we have, you know, the, the beauty of being a
(10:58):
freelancer is occasionally you can come into large sums of
money, but they have to last. You know, like unless your work
is consistent, you have to find a way of making that money
stretch. So we've always not had a great
deal of money. But it was more to do with also
(11:19):
like, do you want to be an actor?
Like you've seen how hard it canbe, as you say, like a life of
rejection. Do you really want to be part of
that as well at 13? You know, I didn't really know,
but I just thought it was a good.
I'll just give it a shot. So you went as a 13 year old,
(11:42):
you'd never been an actor before.
You went to the audition or you went to the play or, or to the
to the youth group that was doing it.
Yeah. You ticked the boxes that they
wanted. Yeah, being Asian and being in a
wheelchair. But I'm sure you didn't want to
fit into those boxes. But I, I am in those boxes, you
(12:04):
know, like it's one of those contradictory things.
It's like if that's the thing about what was used to be
referred to as positive discrimination, the way it came
about was to try and get give people who didn't have advantage
in the market some sort of leg up.
So, you know, there are positiveaspects to be put in, be put in
(12:28):
those boxes because we don't have the same employment as
Asian people or disabled people.So, you know, in a way it was
like, that's just what the role required.
So I didn't see it as a box. I just saw it as maybe I fit.
Yeah. And as a 13 year old, it's a
time of life. It's your first teenage year.
(12:51):
Yeah. There's lots of changes coming
up. You're young, you're full of
energy. You're full of, I don't know,
hope. Yeah.
Do you remember what it felt like when you started acting?
Yeah, I mean, I've always been abit of an old man, you know,
like even at like 10 years old, sort of old and grumpy.
(13:13):
Yeah. Not old and wise.
Oh well, both maybe. Yeah, grumpy and wise.
Also because I need to be cared for.
I need to know what to ask of people and spend a lot of time
around adults as a result of that.
So. So I think if you spend a lot of
(13:36):
time around adults and you have a severe disability, you
probably grow up faster than perhaps you should.
The when? When people have to care for
you, you say you have to be cared for.
How much do you have to rely on other people in your life?
Pretty much for everything. I mean, the way you see me now
(13:56):
is my most presentable and finished and put together, but
there's a lot of work behind thescenes from carers, from care
agencies and my mum's input thatyou don't see that, you know,
it's a bit like the theatre really, sort of rehearse and
(14:17):
then present it. I feel like I have to sort of
reveal myself every morning, youknow, whatever that might mean,
you know? But yeah, I think it it also
means that you have to be able to be comfortable around
(14:37):
strangers very fast and communicate your needs very
effectively from quite a young age.
So it it's kind of up to you to manage everyone around you
rather than everyone around you to manage you.
Yeah. I mean, when you're younger,
it's a bit of input from, you know, other people because you
(14:58):
don't necessarily know what you need.
But I think you realize pretty quickly that you ought to know
what you need, you know, as a disabled person in order to get
by. Because if you can't communicate
your needs then you're going to be stuck literally sometimes.
Do you basically have to have heightened senses in your world
(15:22):
to be very aware both of what your needs are, but be very
aware of how everyone is around you?
Or, or could you just like, not bother about it someday?
I think you do if you want to keep safe, right?
Like safe and healthy, Yes. And later after I became an
(15:43):
actor, I trained as a theatre. I got into drama school and did
ABA in directing so. Why the crossover?
Why? Why what?
What made you think acting's onething, directing's another?
Being directed I guess. As in, it's not a nice
experience. As in like that you as an actor,
(16:08):
you have to understand what the difference is because you've got
a, a role that is completely different to what a director
does. And in order to be able to take
direction from somebody, you sort of have to understand what
the point of it is. Otherwise you're just sort of
thinking, why is that person telling you what to do?
(16:28):
You know, especially at 13, you know, you, you don't understand
that that person's an overseer, somebody who, you know, is
trying to tell a story with a group of people and is an
outside eye. And you can only really
understand that as a teenager. I think by having someone do it
(16:50):
to you and then sort of thinking, oh, maybe I, maybe I'm
analytical enough to do that. My my job in a sense is to come
in often with a short amount of time and small budget and
determine what is needed to kindof turn the gas up underneath a
(17:12):
text or a piece of work. And being a director, you're
making decisions. It must affect like anyone in
any role of responsibility. The fact that you're making
decisions of people who are doing what you ask must in some
way affect how you view yourselfbecause you've you've been given
(17:33):
a position of power. So it must naturally increase
your confidence and increase your own thoughts that your
ideas are the best ideas, if that makes sense.
I think the key to being a good director is like, I love sort of
feeding back into what I was saying earlier is that your idea
(17:54):
is only one idea, but you have to know which are the ones to
follow up, you know, and which ones to discard.
But it's ultimately A collaborative process.
Some of the best ideas I've everhad in a production have not
come from me, you know? They've come from other people.
(18:15):
So it's about listening to thoseand being open to them and not
thinking that yours is the always the right one because
that will lead you down the garden path, you know, it's not
about having total convictions in your ideas always.
It's also about being malleable,you know, and you have to
realise as a director that you're nothing without actors.
(18:38):
You know, a rehearsal can't start without other people.
So in that way that gives you the humility hopefully required
to create a nice atmosphere in in rehearsals that is ultimately
creative. You know, because you can't
create under duress. But but you're under duress
(19:00):
because it's a theatre. There's there's a deadline,
there's a show star, there's an audience, there is pressure.
Yeah, I'm not saying it's a walkin the park, but I think it's,
it's, it's something that the more you do, the easier it
becomes, like anything, you know?
(19:20):
And I know that the pressure is not all mine, you know, like
when I get out, when I see the actors get up on stage for the
first time to do the first show,there's nothing I can do, you
know? So it's also about.
That that's all it at that point.
It's in their hands. Yeah.
(19:40):
So then it becomes about trust, you know, and believing in the
people that you work with. Yeah, first and foremost, when
we audition somebody for a part,we often give them the job
because we like them as people first.
I think you know the idea that. You know, we give people roles
(20:04):
just purely based on the work that's required.
It's only part of the other partis we have to be able to get on
with you for however, you know what I mean?
Like any job? Yeah, like any job interview.
So I think often the most giftedactors that I've come across are
also great people. It's not always the case, but
99% of the time. So don't try to fit in like what
(20:31):
we were talking about before. Don't try and fit into a box.
If someone wants to hire you, they're going to hire you.
You know, 70% because they like who you are.
We get in the way of ourselves because we we kowtow to
expectation and you should just be yourself.
(20:51):
Yeah, that sounds so wanky, but you know, that's it's true, you
know, like, you know, when people say, oh, when you go on a
date, just be yourself, Isn't that the hardest thing in the
world, like. Yeah, it's impossible.
Yeah, because we think that there's some magic to it.
You know, it's, it's actually easier than we make it out to
(21:15):
be. And the only reason we think
we're not being ourselves is because we're weighed down by
expectation. What if this person doesn't like
what I do or what I say or what I think, and that makes us act,
act differently to how we should?
Yeah, as I say, we get in the way of ourselves a lot.
(21:42):
What were you thinking about when I cycled past you?
What were you? You know, how have you spent
your day today? What kind of day has it been?
It's been an easy 1 today. Like because I, one of my things
being a severely disabled personis I fear being isolated.
So I always try and even when, you know, my friends aren't
(22:05):
around or my mum's got somethingto do, I try and go to places
where I will find people, even if I'm going to be by myself
because I also like to people watch because, you know, that's
part of performance as well. You know, like, I steal people's
(22:28):
walks, people characters and things like that.
Or just observe how people sit. Yeah.
Or, you know, I like, the reasonI gravitated towards the
performing arts was because I already did these things
naturally. You know, like, I like people.
I'm kind of intrigued by the human condition.
(22:51):
And so that lends itself to telling stories.
And part of that is being aroundpeople, even if you're by
yourself. When you initially come up to
me, I was like, oh, I thought you might be like some sort of
religious person, you know, likea like, like a sort of what I
would refer to as a God, bud. I was like, I was like, well,
(23:15):
what does this member of the church want?
And. And what would you have said to
me if I'd said to you? Have you thought about X or Y is
the answer. I would have said yeah I'm
already going to hell, so thanks.
Yeah, no, I'm being facetious, but to be honest, I, I'm open to
(23:36):
people talking to me so but I, Iam a Londoner, so I treat
everyone with a bit of automaticsuspicion.
I like that. I I, I like that phrase.
Automatic suspicion. As a Londoner, Why?
Why do you reckon that is? Is it because?
Is it because this is what's wrong with this city?
I think it's because people haveto keep, keep themselves safe,
(24:01):
you know? A bit of healthy suspicion is
good. Yeah.
Like if if you were the oppositeand just completely open to
everything and everyone, you'd soon find yourself in a mess.
Right. But it is about being in in an
individualistic society. You think, what does this person
want, you know, and in a way that's bad because sometimes
(24:25):
people don't want much, you know, like sometimes people just
want to chat or sit with you. You know, I often times I sit in
silence with my friends because I know them really well.
Like we don't have to fill the gaps, you know?
I think that thing about silencewith old friends is magical.
(24:47):
Yeah. Yeah.
And you can. You can't even really do with
people you know really well, because if you do with people
you don't, it's just simply awkward.
Yeah. Like if I if we sat here in
silence for 5 minutes because wedon't know each other, it'd
probably be a bit odd. Yeah.
We could try it, but. We could definitely try it.
At the same time, it's all aboutexploitation, right?
(25:08):
If you expect me to speak, then yeah.
But if I said to you we're goingto sit here in silence for 5
minutes and you can speak only if you want to, then it then the
pressure's off. You know, then you could sit
here for 5 minutes and I wouldn't think it was odd
because I've already, we've already agreed the parameters.
(25:31):
But I think of the thing about old friends is you have an
unspoken agreed parameter that you don't have to speak.
They also know that when I want to say me personally, when I
want to say something, I will. So, you know, they're probably
quite grateful for sitting in silence for 5 minutes.
Oh, really? Shut up.
(25:51):
Yeah. Like I've, I've never had, but
I, I can also do that as well. Like I think there's so much
value in being able to sit with your own thoughts.
And you know, I try to relish being bored as well, like I
think. That's an interesting one,
relatively, because most of us fear being bored.
Yeah, of course we do. That's why we have phones and,
(26:16):
you know, everything else. We, we're so afraid of our own
company, we'll do anything to detract from it.
Yeah, I think it's really important.
I think we've lost the ability to be OK with being bored.
I think being bored is useful ifyou're, if you're never bored,
you know, you'll never know whenit's good, right?
(26:37):
So what should I be doing that I'm not doing?
That's all expectation that onlystands us up for failure most of
the time. Like if we think we're being
unproductive all the time, then we're just creating an
expectation we can never fulfil.And I think that's part of the
problem with society is that we can't sit with ourselves, you
(27:01):
know? Yeah.
And like I said, because I'm forced to sit with myself.
Like, yeah, you've got no choice.
Yeah. So I can then advocate for it,
you know? You're an expert.
Yeah, I'm an expert. That's sort of being inside my
own head, for better or for worse.
(27:23):
You could turn that to your advantage, write a book about it
and make make yourself rich. I could, but then one, I don't
know if I'll it'll make me rich.Like to be rich in ideas is more
important. Secondly, I don't know if anyone
(27:44):
cares as much as I do. And you'll only find that out, I
guess, once you put a book out. But also the the like.
There's so many clever people inthe world who said more profound
things than I'll ever say, So amI just adding to the noise?
I don't know. Going back to the thing about
(28:09):
silence, people, people are listen people.
It might be one person, might benobody listening to this
podcast. Yeah, people are listening
because they don't want to be intheir own silence.
They want to be in somebody else's life.
And the point of this podcast isto give people access to
somebody else's live and thoughts and drop into their
life and, and and and and hear what they've got to say.
(28:32):
And so we we're always curious about other people.
I mean, you say you're, you're you're a people watcher, but
isn't it? Yeah, everyone's a people.
Everyone's curious, aren't they?Yeah, I'm just interested in
people. And like you said, I think we
all are, but we don't always know how to.
We're inquisitive, but we're notinquisitive enough often to ask,
(28:54):
you know, because that takes a different level of bottle and
confidence. I think the one thing that
theatre really did for me as a disabled person was bring me out
of myself. Because, you know, as a young
kid with a severe disability in a major city, you don't really
(29:14):
know what you're, you know, nobody teaches you how to never
get the system as a disabled person, and nobody teaches you
how to rub along so. So you got, you got to work out
yourself. Yeah, but, but, but that phrase
to rub along. Yeah, getting on with it.
Yeah, it's really important. Yeah.
(29:34):
But I don't say that in some sort of aspirational fashion,
like if you want to sit as a disabled person and do
absolutely nothing, because no one's ever doing absolutely
nothing, right? But if you want to sit with
yourself and be vulnerable, you should have that right.
(29:56):
Let's do an experiment, OK? We don't know each other.
Yeah. But let's sit here in silence,
OK? And see what happens.
See who breaks. First, it would definitely be
me, despite the suggestion. Yeah, cool.
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