Francesca Martinez
July 4th, 2010
UPDATE: Nice article in the Guardian here -> having the last laugh
After a hot day walking the streets of London (3/7/2010) in search of both good and bad housing I went to see Francesca Martinez at the Purcell Room on London’s South Bank.
Robin Ince provided the introduction during which time the purpose of the screen above his head became clear. It was translating speech into words on screen in almost real time in much the same way as the subtitles on television do; with occasional human intervention to correct words out of context.
It relayed his words very well but what was more suprising was that when Francesca was speaking, whose speech is less clear, it did an almost perfect job too, (a friend pointed out that she may have “trained” it).
When Robin Ince introduced Francesca Martinez she was assisted on stage to her chair, she has difficulty walking as a result of cerebral palsy, something she calls being “wobbly”. She is cuttingly funny, self deprecating and charming.
Click photo for larger image
Of the many funny stories and anecdotes she related I will repeat only one. She was once asked “Have you ever prayed to God to be normal?” to which she replied “No, because I can’t imagine any God that would make the rest of the world disabled”.
There was a lot of that. Humour directly related to her condition but not in sad or sentimental way, quite the reverse, in a spiky and incrediby amusing way. She is immensely likeable and I’m only sorry she doesn’t appear more often in London but given the breadth of her world tours I’m not surprised.