Review: Meet Fred
@ Sherman Theatre, Cardiff, until January 31st 2026*
Director: Ben Pettitt-Wade
Writers & Performers: Ben Pettitt-Wade, Gareth John, Lindsay Foster, Iwan Jones, Nick Halliwell, Dan McGowan & Sam Harding
This weekend, I took a little detour to Cardiff for, amongst other things, a performance of Meet Fred, which is currently on a UK tour to celebrate its 10th anniversary. First written and staged during the dark days of crushing austerity, when right wingers ran the UK and spent most of their time attacking the disabled and finding increasingly mean-spirited ways to deprive them of basic financial independence, Meet Fred returns to the stage at a time of… uhh… crushing austerity, when… um… there’s a bunch of right wingers spending all of their time attacking the disabled and… uh, yeah, you get the picture.
Written and performed by a collective known as Hijinx, who provide work and opportunities in theatre for disabled and/or autistic artists, Meet Fred is a satire with meta-trappings. Fred, its eponymous star, is a featureless puppet, operated by three puppeteers who are each responsible for his movements and voice. The narrative, which is mindmapped on a series of massive blackboards in the background, follows Fred as he tries to navigate the Kafkaesque humiliations of the DWP (the Department for Work and Puppets) and meet their stringent requirements so that he doesn’t lose part of his allowance and thus one of his essential puppeteers. Alongside this, Fred must also contend with the play’s director, Ben, whose vision for him is one of endless misery yet who continues to blame Fred for the choices written into the script for him.
There are lots of clever allusions to how disabled people are treated by the faceless, bureaucratic welfare system and also by society at large here, and the play treads a fine line between dark humour and didacticism. Its strength lies in how expressive and emotive the puppet, which has no features at all, manages to be, and in how the piece plays with its own structure and logic to address how disabled people’s lives often feel so entirely out of their control. Given the current “Labour” government’s continued assault on the rights and dignity of disabled people, Meet Fred feels as timely now as it must have done a decade ago, and it stands out as an example of activist theatre done right: it’s political, yes, but it’s also funny and endearing.
A lovely treat, this.
* Meet Fred is currently touring the length and breadth of the country - details can tickets can be found on the Hijinx website.
Score: ⭐⭐⭐