Tatum, a non-binary person, sits in a spotlight, their back to the camera.

Launchpad 2026

A development and showcasing opportunity for disabled theatre makers to stage new work.

Launchpad celebrates disabled artists and makers, removed from the pressures and oppressions of being defined by non-disabled people. It builds a world outside narratives of diagnosis and medicalisation. A world in which we can imagine crip pasts and crip futures, in which we can joyfully bring our whole selves, as storytellers, dancers, musicians, magicians, and more.

2026 Launchpad Artists

Fran is a white woman, with brown hair and green eyes. She is wearing a black jumper and smiling. The background is a blurred city street.

Fran Bushe

Fran Bushe is a disabled and neurodivergent artist and an award-winning writer, performer and workshop facilitator. She is known for her funny, candid and poignant storytelling, that centres the body, the challenges of connecting and the importance of community.

Her solo show Ad Libido had multiple sold out runs and a UK tour. She wrote The Diary of My Broken Vagina for Channel 4 Comedy and her book My Broken Vagina was published by Hodder and Stoughton in 2021.

Her play A Gig for Ghosts won the Soho Theatre Tony Craze Prize, had a full run in 2022 and was listed in the best theatre of 2022. Her candid approach to discussing bodies, sex and pleasure has led to her speaking with BBC Woman’s Hour, Cosmopolitan and Jameela Jamil’s I Weigh.

HOT COLD

Grace has a lot on her plate: Her husband is keeping a sex diary, her mother keeps flashing the nurses … and Grace is pretty sure she is turning into a giant lizard. HOT COLD is a one woman show that explores perimenopause, being part of the sandwich generation and not recognising your own body. It is a funny
and raw exploration of the big changes we go through in life and the things we choose to shed.

Hannah Finn & Morgan Barbour

Bios

The Double Draw

Play

Dark skin, black beard and eyeshadow that matches the fiery, angular, African print on his dress. Jordan has his red braids tied back and is triumphantly waving a Progress Pride Flag and singing a little too loud.

Jordan Charles

Myths are Magic…and we have so many to tell. I am Queer Person of Colour, Disabled artist, novelist, playwright, composer, vocalist and storyteller. I’m a fantasy nerd that just wants to spend my time telling stories, ancient and new.

My practice over the last few years has been a deep dive into the beautiful, ancient and enduring spiritual myths of the Yoruba diaspora. Taking stories and venerated figures who are held close by people from Nigeria to Cuba and beyond, I have written a new myth that grows from those historic roots.

I’ve been hosting, singing and performing internationally for ten years. Everywhere from cabaret bars to cruise ships, from the Cocoa Butter Club to Channel 4, I’ve laughed and danced with thousands of people. I want to bring that same joy and sprinkle it with the enchantment that magical stories bring.

When I return to some of my stomping grounds like Glastonbury & Wilderness Festivals, Manchester’s Islington Mill or my home turf of Soho Theatre Walthamstow, I hope to be weaving more magical tales.

Ride the Wind

When an ostracised, disabled boy is granted the power of flight by a Storm Goddess, will he use it in vengeance or heroism?

With Ride the Wind, an original Afro-fantasy musical, I am reaching across the vastness of history and through the artificial veil of colonial disenfranchisement to enchant myself and the audience. I want to celebrate the impossible depth of West African Yoruba mythology and am very interested in enchantment as an induced state. When in a place of wonder, what ideas are audiences more willing to consider? I want to push theatrical boundaries using puppetry and West African dance to bring the music to life for the audience and induce this state of enchantment.

Kat Bond

Kat is a queer, Offie-nominated actor, comic and writer from Essex. When not performing and developing shows with other theatre companies she is making her own unique comedy shows that combine stand up, clown and mostly anarchic characters. Kat has written and performed in CBBC’s Bafta award winning Class Dismissed and Odd Squad. She won The Funny Women Comedy Writing Award 2021 and has been developing scripts for TV since. She is also a trained improviser with the Free Association, freelance facilitator and access support worker for Access All Areas. Kat is visually impaired and has a
new diagnosis of RP. Humour drives most of her work and she loves how helpful it is in storytelling.

Theatre credits include: The Beach House (Park Theatre), It’s True, It’s True, It’s True (Breach Theatre), Cinderella (Theatre Royal, Stratford East), Madhouse Re: Exit with Access All Areas (The Lowry), Aloe Aloe (Bush Theatre & Arts Theatre), Never Like Her Anyway (Soho Theatre), Romeo & Juliet (The Junction)

TV credits include: The Dream Lands (BBC), Eastenders (BBC), Smothered (Sky), Dick Turpin (Apple TV+), Whitstable Pearl (Acorn TV), Call the Midwife (BBC), UrbanMyths (Sky Arts), Dr Brown Show (Channel 4).

The Making of the Eye Show

The show is a satire of the diagnosis show. A reaction to my own impulse post diagnosis of a degenerative eye condition to make a pity party piece. Tonally it is bold, funny and awkward. It documents a writer’s attempt to present everything anyone’s ever thought about eyes, visual impairment and able anxiety (my own included) and takes on this purposefully impossible task using clown, stand up and storytelling. The audience gets to experience 100 days of The Making of the Eye show. It is a ride!