WE ASK THESE QUESTIONs
OF EVERYBODY
Find a disabled community, they will save your life.
They will teach you many things.
How to survive in a world that’s not made for you.
Hannah needs help. She meets Lynn. Lynn works the Department of Work and Pensions. An assessment takes place...and then something else.
This is an encounter between two women, an audience, and a riotous chorus of disabled voices. We Ask These Questions of Everybody transforms a benefits interview into opera, and shares radical and surprising disabled perspectives on society and on ourselves. A 50 minute digital operatic event sharing disabled people’s experiences under austerity in the UK, performed by an exceptional cross-genre, all-disabled ensemble.
'Astonishing: elegant, enraging, restlessly inventive' The I ★★★★★
’Staggering urgency and grace’ Theatre Weekly ★★★★
The Stage ★★★★
A Younger Theatre ★★★★
The UpComing ★★★★
A soundfestival commission supported by Help Musicians, Mahogany Opera Group, Ignite Ticket Fund and Creative Scotland.
behind the scenes
DaDaFest International
31 October - 18 December 2022.
Together! Disability History Month Festival
25 November 2021. Catch up until 9 December 2021.
Soundfestival
29 January 2021. Catch up until 28 February 2021.
PAST DATES & VENUes
This work is fully captioned and includes integrated audio description.
It includes some difficult subjects in disabled people's lives. Please click here if you would like to read a list of content warnings.
Victoria Oruwari - Lynn
Steph West - Hannah, harp
Clarence Adoo - sampler
Sonia Allori - clarinet
Amble Skuse - composer, electronics
Toria Banks - writer, director
Laura Spark - video & captions
cast & creative TEAM
libby welsh
design intern
dylan howells
web developer
dina rider &
sandra-mae lux
personal assistants
& tech support to
ms oruwari
eluned charnley & karen pritchard
rehearsal live captioning
& audio description
with thanks to
‘Hannah’, who let us use her story, her words, and her transcript.
All of the interviewees, who spoke to us, and who allowed us to use their words.
Antti Saario
Roberta Mock
Hannah and Jack, for providing a calm sonic space for Steph to work in.
Sound and Music
and Sound Festival, Creative Scotland, Ignite Ticket Fund, Help Musicians, and Ally and Freddie at Mahogany Opera for supporting this project.