A diagnosis can steal your plans in an instant, but it can also rewrite your creative life in ways you never saw coming. I’m joined by playwright Rae Mainwaring to talk about Bright Places, her bold, funny, brutally honest play about living with multiple sclerosis, and why she wanted audiences with MS to finally see something real and hopeful reflected back at them.
Rae breaks down what MS actually is, including relapsing remitting MS, how symptoms can shift over time, and why “you look well” can land so painfully when fatigue, pain, and sensory weirdness are happening out of sight. We dig into the chaos of being diagnosed at 23, just as adult life is meant to be opening up: work, money, travel, independence, and all the big choices suddenly feel uncertain. Bright Places tackles that disruption head-on, using three performers to play different versions of Rae and letting the story swing between laugh-out-loud moments and raw vulnerability.
We also get practical about accessible theatre. Rae explains creative captioning that is built into the design of the show every night, not tucked into a corner or saved for a single performance. If you care about disability representation, invisible illness, and what modern UK theatre can do at its best, this conversation is for you. Bright Places tours the UK, including Chelmsford Theatre on 8 October and Ipswich’s New Wolsey Theatre on 20 October, with details at carbontheatre.org.uk.
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