Battersea Arts Centre, London
October 9, 2025
Dan Daw Creative Projects (DDCP) now boasts international presence. Co-directed by Australian, disabled performer and producer Daw, DDCP’s work forefronts access and activism, exploring how the arts can trigger systematic change in a society that is too often not set up for d/Deaf and disabled artists to survive, let alone thrive.
EXXY (Aussie slang for ‘that’s expensive mate’) is the result of Daw’s desire for disabled-led voices to occupy large stages. Over two years in the making and culminating in a week-long run at Battersea Arts Centre’s Grand Hall, the work in its very existence pushes back, with a loud and proud middle finger, against the barriers working class, disabled artists must face.
Photo Hugo Glendinning
We are in the Australian outback, corrugated iron, camping chairs, saltbush and all. Daw sets the scene. Here, is where his happiest childhood memories reside. This remote yet intimate place provides a warm hint of narrative in EXXY’s more abstracted moments later on.
Daw is joined by three disabled friends and collaborators Tiiu Mortley, Joe Brown and Sofía Valdiri, among whom he does not need to mask or hide. Ironically, scenes of wordplay suggest that the pressure to fit in can lead to disabled people internalising inaccurate labels, hence why Brown jokes that even to another disabled person, he might describe his cerebral palsy as a sports injury.
The metaphor of a treadmill is expressed through movement. The entire cast move in a circle as if whipped by a tornado, flailing gestures scattered between staggering steps. Later, they run on the spot until breathless, or, when summoned by name, perform micro solos evoking the words squeeze, balance, and contort. Crucially, the performers, Daw included, never get to decide when to start or stop.
Photo Hugo Glendinning
EXXY is packed with grand set and sounds. The show opens with tennis balls catapulted towards us, tearing through Daw’s face on an enormous EXXY banner, and caught by a net. Later, hundreds of what look like coins fall from above and, when not speaking, the cast are often swallowed by thumping electronic music.
Though some of the larger production elements are difficult to connect coherently, the volume of EXXY is deliberate. Disabled artists face a magnitude of complex barriers ingrained into societal structures; what if raising your voice is what it takes to be heard?
The real substance of EXXY lies in Daw’s raw spoken word, inseparable from his trademark humour. The others, too, share glimpses of individual experiences living with a visible disability, and the moments their perspectives intersect are the most powerful. The whole cast let themselves drool for several minutes, and though the intimacy of this cannot be felt by those who aren’t in front rows, due to the sheer size of the Hall, the statement carries value all the same.
Access is fully integrated for performer and audience, and the latter are tugged into the performance, not only because Daw breaks the fourth wall instantly, but because the captions ask it of us. When they read, “Audience sings…”, we sing. By inviting us in this way, we are brought back to Daw’s intentions of care and inclusion.
DDCP may have ‘made it’ with EXXY, a large-scale production soon to tour internationally, but the meaning of their work as a company lies in pursuing sector wide change and advocacy for disabled artists, so that, to echo Daws earlier words, nobody gets left behind.
Dan Daw’s EXXY continues on tour. Click here for dates and venues.