Showing @ Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh until Wed 3 Oct – run ended

Although society’s attitudes towards disability continue to improve, physically or mentally disabled actors in mainstream theatre are still rare. Directed by Lies Pauwels, Alison Peebles’ semi-surreal autobiopic is then a significant production for the National Theatre of Scotland.

Using drama and dance, Peebles and four other performers take on a variety of roles including different sides of her psyche and people from her life, and rather than sticking to a traditional narrative, the play is a structured outpouring of Peebles’ experiences with her Multiple Sclerosis.

Although Peebles’ semi-confrontational performance is a deeply personal portrayal, it’s delivered as if the points and issues mentioned could and should be transposed to anybody with a disability. Peebles spends a lot of time considering the phrase ‘perfect body’, what it consists of and who decides what’s perfect, ultimately leading to the opinion that its definition is subjective. The sparse waiting room set is effectively a blue screen; the play is text and movement heavy but the location is unimportant, emphasising how these problems aren’t unique to Peebles. In having a distraught character cry into a microphone about how much they ‘just want to help’, Peebles examines the roles that friends, family and carers play in disabled people’s lives, stressing how easy it is for good intentions to become patronising. However, it’s the lines about being in a zoo that most clearly exemplify her experience of being segregated from society, with the use of dance powerfully expressing pent up frustration.

But it’s difficult to gauge how Peebles wants her audience to respond. While what’s performed doesn’t feel preachy there also seems to be no conclusive resolution. Admittedly, she confesses to not having reached ‘the point’ and you could argue there isn’t one, but something still feels missing. Despite being a fascinating, theatrically unusual and culturally important insight into a much evaded subject, there’s an uncertain and unfinished quality that niggles away in your mind. But then again, perhaps that’s ‘the point’.