As the Bounce! Arts Festival highlighting disabled and deaf performers gets under way in Belfast, David Roy spoke to comedy double act Gareth Berliner and Kiruna Stamell about One of Us Will Die, the married duo's new stand-up show based on their experiences as a disabled couple
DID you hear the one about the dancing dwarf and the guy with no stomach who couldn't stop farting?
If not, you will shortly: husband and wife comedy duo Kiruna Stamell and Gareth Berliner's new stand-up show One of Us Will Die chronicles their experiences as a disabled couple.
Kiruna has was born with acromeseomelic dysplasia, a rare form of dwarfism, while Gareth has fought a long battle with Crohn's disease (a form of inflamed bowel disease) which drove him to a suicide bid before stand-up comedy offered a literal lifeline.
Happily, now the pair's love for one another has helped them overcome the challenges and prejudices they encounter in everyday life together, as well as offering fresh perspective on just how rubbish many of their past partners were in terms of coping with their respective conditions.
All of this and more (like how they've learned to live with Gareth's Crohn's-related gas passing) has become fodder for a live show that should educate as well as amuse.
Currently starring in the play Great Britain at The National Theatre in London, Sydney-born Kiruna (32) is a successful dancer and actor who has enjoyed roles in the likes of EastEnders, Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge and Life's Too Short, the hit Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant-written sitcom starring Warwick Davis.
Gareth (42), who hails from Birmingham, has enjoyed a decade-long career as a professional stand-up. He has worked with renowned disabled stand-up collective Abnormally Funny People and has performed gigs all over the world. Despite Kiruna having dismissed Gareth on first sight as "just another superficial stand-up with a dumb blonde on his arm", he was immediately taken with "this incredibly funny, beautiful, vivacious, sassy, drunk Australian lady".
Two years later they were fixed up by a mutual friend and enjoyed a first date that lasted four days. Having married in September 2012, the couple were quick to join forces on stage as well as off.
According to Kiruna, who trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, the cheerfully titled One Of Us Will Die is a "slicker, more polished and better structured show about our relationship" which evolved out of an initial and "massively experimental" joint project called A Little Commitment. "I was very new to stand-up back then, while Gareth was already established," the 3ft 6inches tall talent tells me. "I'd never shared a stage with anyone before," admits her 6ft 3 partner, who takes nearly all of his daily nutrition via a feeding tube in his chest as a result of multiple operations which have left him with very little lower intestine. "Doing that, especially with your wife, brings a whole new dimension to everything.
Initially that was a really big challenge for me."
The fact that these two performers have contrasting styles also presented a challenge in terms of aligning Kiruna's very much larger-than-life on-stage persona with Gareth's more cautious delivery. "She's definitely a lot more fearless than me, even though I've been doing it a lot longer," he reveals, with obvious pride. "She's a lot more prepared to suddenly bang out a tune or start dancing randomly." "Mind you, that's not always a great trait to have," giggles Kiruna. Reactions to the hour-long show have been largely enthusiastic, even if some punters remain sceptical about what they've just seen. "It's funny, you still get the odd person afterwards who doesn't believe we're actually married," explains Kiruna. "They think it's all a gimmick."
n continues overleaf