It Hasn’t Happened Yet (Tour – Manchester)

Liz Carr would probably admit she is no beauty but she makes up for that with oodles of charm and stage presence.
Her one woman, self-written play, It Hasn’t Happened Yet is about fellow wheelchair user, Alex Saunders as she attempts to enter the funny-ha ha world of stand-up (or, in her case, sit down) comedy.

The play starts off in the dressing room of the Royal Albert Hall during the final of a national comedy competition. Alex’s inner voice is personified by a look-alike puppet with a habit of putting her down.The people she meets at the theatre or elsewhere are depicted with non uniform voices and equally different opinions expressed by voiceovers.

The key question that the play poses is whether you can be disabled, laugh at yourself and make the outside world laugh, too. There is never a truer word said in the saying:  “Laugh and the world laughs with you:  weep and you weep alone.” Carr certainly gets me laughing – and a fair chunk of the audience, too.

We follow her from failure to comedy school to the Funny factor final. Waiting in her dressing room for the big moment, Alex is obviously nervous and this is not unfounded for she is faced by a compere who hates the idea of a disabled woman trying to be funny. Whatever his opinion, I like her humour. Her jokes about fish are rewarded by spontaneous laughter and applause. “What is the difference between a piano and a fish?” Answer:”You can tune a piano but you can’t tuna fish!”

Neither her character, Alex Saunders nor Liz Carr herself, let disability prevent them from doing whatever they want. Carr is more than a one trick pony. Not only an actor, writer, and stand-up comedienne, she is also a broadcaster on disability issues with Radio 4.

The world can be anyone’s oyster, wheelchair bound or not. But it takes guts to get it.

– Julia Taylor