Natasha Wood: Rolling With Laughter

Natasha Wood likes to move. She rushes you through the story of her life at breakneck speed, mimicking her parents, her doctor, her lover and her brother. Her monologue flows in and out of family holidays and past conversations and across continents; she’ll shift place and time without preamble, and, thanks to some excellent script editing you never quite lose your place. Wood was born with Spinal Muscular Atrophy; her story tells why she never allowed being wheelchair bound and dependent on care assistants to hold her back. So slick and honed is her performance of her own life that when we reach the bits of her life that are still raw and recent for her – the death of her brother, the breakdown of her marriage – it’s a shock to realise that the emotion she’s going through is genuine.

Apart from her disability Wood’s story is not especially unusual, and many of the events she spends time detailing are resolutely ordinary, but some lovely, bawdy Northern humour and those bittersweet nuggets of emotion make this a touching evening’s entertainment. (Kirstin Innes)

Pleasance Dome, 556 6550, until Mon 27 Aug (not 20 & 21), 6.15pm, £6–£8 (£5–£7).