Artists and campaigners are hosting an online discussion on textile art, on Wednesday 11th June at 3.30pm, with particular reference to the DWP Deaths Make Me Sick shrouds. Details on this simple poster. Share with anyone you think might be interested.
A Very Queer Nazi Faust is a re-imagining of the Faust legend by a 21st century disability rights campaigner and poet, Vince Laws. It began as an idea which Laws explored on an Arvon playwriting course, before he honed the plot, and committed it to the page as a comic.
Early in 2016, with support from Shape Arts, Laws sent that comic to TLC for feedback. The feedback was really useful, very specific, and although a lot of corrections and suggestions had to be filtered through the text, Laws spent the next year redrafting, before sending the redraft back to TLC to see what the same reader thought of his changes. He liked them! Bravo!
With renewed confidence in his writing, early in 2017, Laws decided to make the comic into a live performance, and put out a call for participants in the Norwich area. Thirteen local activists, some with disabilities, some without, were cast via social media, and rehearsals began, culminating in a performance at Norwich Pride in July 2017, which was met with popular and critical acclaim.
In 2018, funded by Unlimited, and the Spirit of 2012, Laws ran participatory workshops and honed the script, culminating in a sold out performance at Norwich Arts Centre in September 2018. “I bloody loved it! The show I enjoyed the most this year,” Pasco Q Devlin, Norwich Arts Centre Director. That live performance was turned into a podcast version of A Very Queer Nazi Faust available free on Soundcloud. The performance contains adult themes and language, suicidal thoughts, Lucifer, The Naked Abseilers and poetry, but no Nazis.
Laws is currently re-making A Very Queer Nazi Faust into a comic, now with a richer workshopped text.
Poet John Faust is suicidal. His benefits have been stopped without warning, the bailiffs are due to evict him, his dog is in the vets dying, his car needs a new clutch, and he can’t finish his poetic masterpiece while the voices inside his head torment him. In despair, he throws himself off Beeston Bump, Norfolk’s highest peak, clutching ‘The Tragic True Life & Deserved Death of a Benefit Scrounger by Himself’, but Lucifer won’t let John drown because she loves his work and wants a bigger part. Every time Faust throws himself into the sea, Lucifer throws him out on a different Norfolk beach….
Intro ends.
You can read a 5 page extract from the script and see 5 comic book images here:
https://literaryconsultancy.