Touretteshero

Access to Work says Jenny Sealey of Graeae Theatre can only have 10 hours a week BSL interpretation to cover her 47 work week.
@touretteshero.bsky.social had a similar cut in support - her blog encouraging everyone affected to send evidence to the Public Accounts Committee: bsky.app/profile/tour...

BAFTA Fallout I want to start this post with a significant caveat – attempting to talk about complex, emotive and highly charged issues within the constraints of the frenzied news cycle is difficult and unpredictab...

Read my post on the fall out of last nights BAFTA's here. This is an opportunity to increase understanding of oppositional tics and acknowledge the complex realities and impacts of the condition: www.touretteshero.com/safe/2026/02...

Oppositional Me This is a post I need to write but you might not need to read – I’m going to discuss some of the complicated, distressing parts of having Tourettes, and if reading it feels too much at any point pleas...

Resharing this on oppositional tics, the element of #Tourettes that involves saying or doing the opposite of what you should/would want to. A complex, distressing part of TS that’s hard to manage practically, emotionally & intellectually: www.touretteshero.com/2020/02/01/o...

While tourettes is in the news can I recommend seeing @touretteshero.bsky.social perform whenever you get the chance. Saw her performance at glastonbury (biscuits!) in 2008? 2009? on a tiny stage and it was utterly fabulous. She's done great work since on and off stage since too.

Access To Work Inquiry – Submit Your Evidence Now I’ve spent the last few days gathering evidence for the Public Accounts Committee inquiry into Access to Work. It’s becoming increasingly clear that huge, devastating changes are planned by the Govern...

I’ve just submitted my evidence for the Public Accounts Committee inquiry into #AccessToWork. It’s becoming increasingly clear that huge, devastating changes are planned & the future of many working disabled people & those they employ, hangs in the balance www.touretteshero.com/safe/2026/02...

For the Love of Hotknives Content Warning: Description of death I don’t know exactly where to start with this, so I’m going to get the devastating news out the way first. Then I can focus all my attention on paying tribute t...

As my shock at the death of my long-term creative collaborator & 1/3rd of the Tourettes Bipolar Alliance, Christopher ‘Captain Hotknives’ Smith starts turning into grief, now feels like the right moment to write in celebration of my favourite Captain: www.touretteshero.com/2026/02/10/f...

The Department for Wonder and Play – Shadows in the Light Can you believe it’s been nearly three years since we launched our brilliant Zine, The Department for Wonder and Play? Now that we’ve got two volumes and two launch events under our collective belt, i...

Applications are open for our 3rd volume of The Department for Wonder & Play zine, the 2026 theme is: Shadows in the Light. A supportive, low pressure opportunity for disabled, neurodivergent or chronically ill 14-26 yr olds. More here: www.touretteshero.com/2026/02/09/t...

(1/2) Tourettes Hero and Captain Hotknives - Glade Stage - Glastonbury Festival 2016 YouTube video by HyperboreanUK

We were here. Easily the highlight of the festival for us, the wonderful anarchic joy of @touretteshero.bsky.social & Captain Hotknives. Also saw him in beautiful freeflowing form in late 2019 on the cusp of the world changing forever. Well it's a different time now alright... rest in peace Captain.

Introducing Knowledge Builders – Our New Research Programme Supporting disabled-led thinking has been an important part of Touretteshero from the beginning, and over the last few years our research programmes have grown under the care of our Director of Resear...

Our new programme Knowledge Builders launches today. Supporting disabled thinkers to undertake their own research. You don’t have to have done research before. If you’re a disabled person over 16 with a question you'd like to explore this could be for you:
www.touretteshero.com/2026/01/26/i...

Access Anxiety Often when I write these posts I’m doing it with a wide audience in mind, but this one is slightly different. While everyone’s welcome to read it, it’s particularly aimed at funding bodies, grant admi...

Disabled people are facing an existential threat as #AccessToWork seems to be being gutted from the inside. We know it’s being reformed but not what this will look like or the timeline. We need leaders to engage now or risk undoing decades of investment
www.touretteshero.com/2026/01/19/a...

Touretteshero: Return of the Rebels - Whitechapel Gallery Join Touretteshero for Return of the Rebels – a day of rebellious and inclusive fun for all ages. Expect multi-sensory play, creativity and connection, inviting you to explore what rebellious, inclusi...

Save the date! 14th Feb, the day of love & if you love creative, disabled-led play then this is for you. Touretteshero’s Rebel Play is back & we’ve teamed up with @_TheWhitechapel & incredible new artists for Return Of The Rebels more info in the new year: www.whitechapelgallery.org/events/toure...

Interview - Podcast ep.73 Disability and… Access to Work In this episode of Disability and... choreographer and artistic director of Cathy Waller Company, Cathy Waller chats with writer, artist and activist Jess Thom about her recent experience of claiming ...

We'd like to highlight a podcast episode for Disability History Month from @disabilityarts.bsky.social featuring Cathy Waller and @touretteshero.bsky.social speaking about Access to Work. 

Content warning, this podcast contains strong language and references of a sexual nature. tinyurl.com/yj9tzup3

BBC Four - On Stage: Live from Television Centre, Broadcast from Biscuitland: The Finale A surreal and comic musical finale featuring a choir, a brass band and dancing biscuits.

Ten Years ago today Live From Television Centre was broadcast on BBC4 you can still watch the grand finale, orchestrated by my tics and made possible by many incredible people here: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p... #BringOnTheBiscuits #ILove

What Do Children Need? Yesterday was BBC Children in Need day. Schools and workplaces held collections in the lead up to an evening extravaganza of celebrity-led TV fundraising. The money raised will fund life-changing work...

It’s Children In Need tomorrow so I’m resharing a piece from a few years ago. I don’t believe that pity is the only way of raising money & I’d like to see CiN working with disabled people to imagine new ways of framing & contextualising our stories: www.touretteshero.com/2021/11/20/w...

In A Hopeless Place For anyone old enough to remember, in 2011 Rihanna found love in a hopeless place. That place, if the video is anything to go by, turned out to be County Down in Northern Ireland. The song, with its c...

What do you get if you cross a 2011 Rihanna song with a cow? Seems the answer for me is a new regular #Tourettes tic! Biscuits have made space for bovines - find out more here: www.touretteshero.com/2025/10/24/i...

Living with the Organist – Nisha Oza If living with Tourettes has taught me one thing it’s that brains are incredibly complex and that medical understandings of neurological conditions and the reality of living with them can often feel q...

Great guest blog by our Senior Producer Nisha on Epilepsy & organists. One of the complexities of living with brain conditions is that it's also where so much of who we are is located. Navigating the reality of this can be practically & emotionally complex: www.touretteshero.com/2025/09/01/l...

Siblings Letter – Your Help Needed Last year we launched the Touretteshero Welcome Pack, a set of artist designed letters that we provide free to children who are newly diagnosed with tics or Tourettes, and their families. The welcome ...

We're planning to reprint our welcome pack for children with #Tourettes & are adding a letter for siblings. If you're a person with tics, their sibling, or parent/carer please complete a short survey & help us make the letter as useful as possible: www.touretteshero.com/safe/2025/10...

Practical Intervention Fund – Mobility Edition It’s been four years since we launched our Practical Intervention Fund (PIF). The fund enables disabled, deaf and neurodivergent people to experiment with different items which can support their wellb...

Our Practical Intervention fund's back! This time with a Mobility focus, we can't provide actual mobility aids but we have 8 great items we can gift to disabled people who aren't able to buy them. Simple application process, more here: www.touretteshero.com/2025/08/12/p... closes 03/09/25

When it works properly & I can remember a time when it did #AccessToWork is liberating & transformative. I want to make it absolutely clear that disabled people are here to stay, that our lives, experiences, skills and imaginations matter & we are not disposable. 2/2

We Are Not Disposable A couple of weeks ago some colleagues and I gathered round a phone in the Touretteshero office to speak to my newly allocated caseworker from the Department for Work and Pensions about my Access to Wo...

I've not been able to do my job for the last 3 months because of a DWP decision to cut my #AccessToWork support. This week I received a letter reinstating my support, while this is good news for me there are many others still affected by cuts & delays touretteshero.com/safe/2025/07... 1/2

Benefit reforms risk pushing disabled creatives back to the margins - Arts Professional Without equitable access to life enhancing benefits, disabled people's participation in culture is severely limited, writes the UK's arts access champion Andrew Miller.

An important article by Andrew Miller in @ArtsPro please read and share: www.artsprofessional.co.uk/magazine/fea... #ProtectAtW #TakingThePip

I’m so shocked this is happening, in 21st century Britain, under a Labour govt. - the words say “get people working “ the policies are causing the complete opposite!

I don't know Jess personally, but for pretty much the entire time I've been working professionally she has been widely regarded as a valued and respected figure in the British theatre sector. That it has taken a Labour government to force her out of work is an indelible mark of shame.

My Job Hasn’t Changed, My Disability Hasn’t Changed, So Why Has My Support Changed? Shortly before my emergency pacemaker operation at the end of March, I had a meeting with a couple of my colleagues to talk about what should happen to our company if I didn’t survive the procedure. T...

My Job Hasn’t Changed, My Disability Hasn’t Changed, So Why Has My Support Changed? www.touretteshero.com/2025/06/20/m...

Channel 4 news interviewing Jess Thom who cannot continue working due to cuts in Access to Work funding.

It was Jess’ organisation, @touretteshero.bsky.social that enabled my learning disabled son, to perform at the Southbank in London.

The cuts in support for #disabled people must stop.

A Tale of Two Pods Content Notice: References to genocide and Euthanasia In 2016 much to my surprise and delight I became a Wellcome Trust Engagement Fellow. This Fellowship from an internationally recognised health re...

A Tale of Two Pods, offering us two versions of the future, which would you choose? www.touretteshero.com/2025/06/25/a...

Making all self-driving pilot schemes accessible would be ‘counter-productive’ and slow us down, says minister A transport minister has told peers that it would be “counter-productive” – and take too long – to draw up rules that would ensure all pilot schemes of self-driving taxis are accessible to disabled…

Making all self-driving pilot schemes accessible would be ‘counter-productive’ and slow us down, says minister
www.disabilitynewsservice.com/making-all-s...

Labour’s Pincer Movement Is it just me or is it feeling a lot like the 1930s all of a sudden? I’m giving myself permission to ask big questions like this in part because I’m not working at the moment. The reason why I’m not d...

Sharing this in solidarity with all those who, like me, are deeply worried and concerned about the outcome of the #AssistedDying vote today: www.touretteshero.com/2025/06/20/l... #TakingThePip #ProtectAtW

Family coercion is one risk, the much bigger risk, in a society that often fails to comprehend the reality of sick & disabled lives, is systemic coercion. There’s a lot of talk of ‘choice in death’ but many of us don’t have choice over how we live 3/3

I’m worried this will make my support much more expensive and I may be pressured to move to residential care - loosing my home as a result. This is the context in which #AssistedDying is being discussed. 2/3