Professional wrestling is often described by it’s true devotees as the ultimate form of physical storytelling.

Every beat of the story can be seen through their movement and is underlined by the reverberations of the thuds in the ring. Wrestling tells intense stories of good and evil, greed, betrayal, and love; all wrapped up and presented in camp, glamour, and violence.

As disabled performers, we feel limited in how we can tell stories. As we watch professional wrestling we wonder, ‘how do we, as disabled people tell stories like these elite athletes?’ How many disabled and chronically ill people have watched their favourite form of storytelling believing there is no way they would ever be able to take part?

Chronic Violence will bring together an entirely disabled and chronically ill cast to research and develop an accessible version of professional wrestling storytelling using puppetry.

Both artforms require the audience to suspend their disbelief, an important part of storytelling in professional wrestling. We will aim to find the thread of commonality between these artforms that helps audience members to focus on the storytelling at the heart of the practice and therefore transcend the physical representation of what they are watching.

Professional wrestling shows are also interactive. Like pantomime or cabaret, they simply do not work properly if the audience are not involved. An aim of this project is to research how this element of interaction can be used to benefit audience members who would struggle in the quiet stillness of a standard theatre environment. We also aim to explore how we can mitigate some of the access issues people face at live sports events e.g., people standing up and obscuring the view.