Touretteshero’s inclusive presentation of Not I opened at Battersea Arts Centre in February 2018. Jess Thom has claimed Mouth as a disabled character; comparing her experience of Tourette’s to Mouth’s experience of not having control over her body and speech (BBC Front Row). The production features integrated British Sign Language (BSL), which is performed by Charmaine Wombwell. This Relaxed Performance asks who is allowed to access theatre and questions the cultural curation of accessible theatre. It will be followed by a TV programme, Me, My Mouth and I, airing on BBC2, as part of the Performance Live strand. Reception In 1998, David Benedict of The Independent argued that Not I is a "finer, more dramatically distilled" work than Waiting for Godot (1953). He referred to it as a "searingly beautiful depiction of humanity through the mouth of a woman. A truly unforgettable piece of dramatic writing". Related texts "Kilcool" On 28 August 1963, shortly after completing work on Film, Beckett began working on a new notebook which included several fragments of writing. There are four separate outlines in the 'Kilcool manuscript' which Stan Gontarski describes as 'episodes'. Analysis of the manuscript by Rosemary Pountey and Stan Gontarski suggests that 'Kilcool' is an early forerunner to what later became the visual and textual themes of Not I. In early drafts, a female voice describes a move to Kilcool (which is misspelt - Beckett later amends the mistake). Beckett’s father had once rented a house in Kilcoole, a small marshy village in Co. Wicklow, Ireland. The first outline describes a monologue spoken by a woman (only the face is visible) who has lost both parents and has moved to Kilcool(e) to live with a 'widowed childless aunt'. Stage outlines specify a "woman's face alone in constant light. Nothing but fixed lit face and speech." throughout the four outlines. In later drafts, Beckett eliminated almost all naturalistic detail in order to focus on more abstract narrative themes such as memory, compulsive speech and death. The Unnamable Asked further about sources for Not I, Beckett referred questioners back to his own novel, The Unnamable with its clamouring voice longing for silence, circular narrative and concern about avoiding the first person pronoun: "I shall not say I again, ever again". Vivian Mercier in his book Beckett/Beckett goes as far as to suggest that, gender aside, Not I is effectively a dramatisation of The Unnamable. That