Review: Ray Bradshaw at South Street Arts Centre, Reading (BSL)

Juliet England catches a set by award-winning Glaswegian comedian and CODA Ray Bradshaw

There’s a brief moment of panic at the start of Ray Bradshaw’s Deaf Com 1 gig, which the 34-year-old Scottish comic kicks off by signing away frantically. (Regrettably, my knowledge of BSL is genuinely limited to the signs for ‘vicar’, ‘coffee’ and ‘thank you’, which only gets you so far outside parish meetings.) So I cannot follow a jot of what is being said.

I’ve already taken my life in my hands by insisting on a front-row seat, always a risky business with a comedy show, although any fears of being picked on prove unfounded. Wait, I think to myself as my heart rate increases and I start to fret that the whole set will be like this.

This must be what it’s like for a profoundly deaf person attending most comedy gigs.

Indeed, Bradshaw has himself spoken out eloquently against the lack of access to shows, citing the vast range of performances at the Edinburgh Fringe, for example, compared with the paltry number of signed ones.

Anyway, to my intense relief, the voiceover soon comes through, although for someone like me, whose hearing loss is marked but not profound, the uncaptioned voiceover was occasionally hard to follow verbatim.

Bradshaw changes around throughout the set, sometimes speaking instead of playing a voiceover and occasionally showing a video of himself signing. But there is audio plus BSL from start to finish.

He directs the deaf audience members towards the screen. (“If you’re deaf, watch it. If you’re hearing, do what you want. I’m not your mum.”)

His performance relies heavily on anecdote, drawing on the Glaswegian’s experiences of growing up as a child of deaf adults, or CODA.

“It was only when I started to talk about it,” he muses. “That I realised just how weird my family are.”

The tales are plentiful, the skillful delivery drawing extensively on storytelling and personal experience rather than quickfire or observation. We’re in for an evening that’s for the most part more gently wry than edgy, although the laughter count from the Reading audience is high.

There is one decent one-liner, though: “Growing up with deaf parents is fine. Until you run out of toilet roll.”

His family back in Glasgow sounds an absolute riot, and his father David, who, like Bradshaw’s mum is profoundly deaf, in particular comes over as hilarious.

There was the time David was exposed to Australian sign language – not the same, as readers will know, as BSL, but Bradshaw had to point this out to his dad.

“Thank God for that,” came the reply. “I thought I was having a stroke.”

When he was invited (somewhat pointlessly) to be interviewed on a Glasgow radio station, David played along with it, winding producers up right up to the point of going into the studio and putting headphones on, complaining to his son seconds later that ‘these don’t seem to be working’.

David is apparently also in the habit of covering his eyes with his hands in the middle of a heated argument, the deaf equivalent of hearing people blocking their ears.

Videos and photos of the family are shown, including a clip of Bradshaw teaching his toddler son BSL. It seems that David’s first reaction on seeing the film, rather than delight at the sight of his grandson learning sign language, was to ask why his own son was wearing football kit.

Bradshaw is good at highlighting the ridiculous way deaf people are sometimes treated, although again the mood is mild, more raised eyebrow than raised fist, educating and increasing awareness with humour.

He has been asked, for example, if his parents read Braille (er, why would they, they’re not blind). And he mocks the way some hearing people confuse deafness with stupidity, talking Very. Slowly. Indeed.

When he married in New York a few years back, the whole gang flew over for the wedding. Ray’s parents were in the system as ‘disabled’ and so weren’t allowed to disembark at JFK – until two wheelchairs had been brought onto the plane. To add to the hilarity, Bradshaw Senior and his wife were in the middle of a furious BSL row at the time.

The arguments soon blow over, however, and, without wanting to sound too icky about it, the love the Bradshaw family members have for one another is in clear evidence.

My favourite story, however, was not family-related but about the time Bradshaw said ‘good night, Belfast’, at the end of one show … in Dublin. (It may have been the other way round, but no matter.) There were tweets calling him IR-Ray afterwards.

To make matters worse, Bradshaw was in a chemist’s the next day, pondering aloud what toiletries he needed.

“You won’t be needing any shampoo or conditioner, anyway,” came the sour quip from behind the till. (Bradshaw, it’s fair to say, is somewhat follicularly challenged.) The woman serving him had seen the gig with the city-name blunder the night before.

There is an element of audience participation, with Bradshaw asking who’s had bits of metal inserted into their bodies for medical reasons. (I wasn’t sure whether my CI qualified.) This leads to another yarn involving having metal implanted in his arms and a youthful romantic liaison in a car.

The comic also gives us the chance to tweet questions during the interval, and he answers some of them at the start of the second half. He closes by encouraging those who don’t sign to consider enrolling in a local class.

All in all, an insightful, sensitive, clever and slyly amusing evening, one which provided a refreshing change from most stand-up fare. Even if he did complain about my hometown’s late-night drunken rowdiness. (What did he expect in Reading on a Friday evening? Anyway, that’s nothing – has he not been to Basingstoke on a weekend?)

• Ray Bradshaw tours the UK until mid-April.