Returning

And...we're back. After a much-needed break, we picked up the tour again last night with our first show at the Mayflower Theatre, Southampton; and another record-breaker - the largest audience this production has played to, anywhere in the world: 1,899 people.

Last night, the audience's audible reactions were mostly happy ones. It's not always that way: in the last few weeks, I've heard some very distressed - and distressing - reactions: crying, even screaming. There are elements of this play which, for personal reasons, touch nerves. In Leicester, I was contacted on Twitter by a mother who'd brought her son, who suffered seizures as a result of the lights and was incredibly distressed by a scene that featured domestic violence. She said that she'd found it exhausting, that she was totally wrung out; but also that it was some of the most powerful theatre she'd ever seen. Despite the exhaustion of bringing her son, she was kind enough to say that "I guess you know you've created powerful drama when your audience cries, screams and has seizures". Well, yes. As distressing as it is to hear those sounds, it's gratifying to know that the overall effect is a positive and hopefully cathartic one (she's written more extensively about her experience here).

As another mother put it, talking about her autistic son:

"Imagine a world where it physically hurts you to enter a supermarket, or for a motorbike to pass you on the road. Where you can't stand the sound of a toilet flushing, and hand driers just send you into full scale meltdown. A situation where planning a family day out - and executing it - can be so stressful you wonder why you are putting yourselves through it. Where you feel guilty and bad for their siblings in case they feel neglected by all the attention the autistic child needs. Where having to take a new route home from school is so stressful it reduces both you and your mother to tears. Where being asked to try a new food makes you physically sick. Where you can't make yourself understood so you scream and hit the person you love the most. Where your biggest fear is the iPad losing charge or Tesco's running out of the ONLY biscuits they will eat. Where a change of product packaging can almost bring a family to its knees. It's horrible to watch your most treasured possession live with that. Day in and day out. It's not easy being screamed at, slapped, kicked, bitten or punched pretty much daily by your child because they have autism. But overcoming it together, your child accepting this or learning to tolerate it, however much it hurts them and upsets them...that rocks. Autistic people rock. They are inspirational warriors in a world that just isn't geared up for them yet. And actually, I wouldn't change my baby for the world. I just wish I could make the world around him easier."

A reminder: we are doing a special relaxed performance here in Southampton next week, specifically for an audience that might see the world this way. I hope as many people as possible can take advantage of this: it promises to be a unique day for all of us.