Access All: Disability News and Mental Health

Is Robyn the only autistic person who doesn’t love fidget-spinners? And what's this about Jamie's T-shirt?We gave two autistic people free rein in a studio with a tin full of questions only “neurotypicals” would ask. The result is an entertaining and enlightening chat about stimming, social gatherings and sensory overload.This podcast is one of a series of takeovers, produced by Damon Rose and Emma Tracey. If you have an idea for a future programme, email ouch@bbc.co.uk.Subscribe to Ouch as a weekly podcast and, if you wouldn't mind, we'd be delighted if you reviewed us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts from - it helps other people find us.

They're talked about a lot at the moment, but can "sex robots" help disabled people? Also, the disabled teen punk who left home to find an independent life for herself in the less-accessible 80s. And the action movie where sign language is a super-power. Presented by Kate Monaghan and Simon Minty. Subscribe to the Ouch podcast and have our programmes delivered to your device every week. And please like, review and share Ouch so that others can find it more easily.

Vlogger Charles Michael Duke, 22, posts comedy songs and videos about life with cystic fibrosis on YouTube. People with CF shouldn’t meet face to face due to fear of cross-contamination. So they hang out online, where Charles feeds the community with his niche CF references such as having fingers like ET and potent flatulence caused by a low-functioning pancreas.The Southampton-based actor has been waiting two and a half years for a double lung transplant and is working hard to stay well enough for the operation.Interview by Emma TraceySubscribe to Ouch, share it on social media and be sure to review it on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts from, so that others who are interested in disability and mental health can find us more easily.

Being part of the male gay scene can be tricky when you “wobble and spasm like I do” says Robert Softley Gale.The actor with cerebral palsy says there is also a lack of accessibility in "queer" pubs and clubs. But for now Robert has a big enough challenge putting on tights in his new touring stage show Blanche and Butch, where he plays a drag queen.Interview by Emma Tracey.Subscribe to Ouch, share it on social media and be sure to review it on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts from, so that others who are interested in disability and mental health can find us more easily.

Ria found herself in prison after she set light to her home when she was in it.She had been suffering from psychosis brought on by distress at the death of a friend. While on remand, she worked hard to make herself better. With Beth Rose and Damon RoseSubscribe to Ouch, share it on social media and be sure to review it on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts from so that others who are interested in disability and mental health can find us more easily.

Warning: this programme contains discussion of a sexual nature. Disabled writer and performer Penny Pepper join the team this week. (see Related Links for a transcript) This is a replay of a fascinating interview from early 2016. Pepper talks openly about how she found out about the joys of sex thanks to friends at a hospital boarding school she was at in the 1970s. Though the interview is full of humour and tips, Pepper has some serious messages for disabled people about intimacy with those you can trust. There's also a surprising revelation about cotton buds that we'll gloss over now but you can hear in full on the podcast. We're going red just thinking about it. Rate us, review us, share us. It's the disability podcast everyone should hear.

The playwright who experiences pain as sounds and pictures, Tourettes Hero Jess Thom on performing Beckett’s play Not I, the comedian with cerebral palsy whose slow speech is part of her act and the man whose poem OCD has 62 million YouTube hits.The sounds and images in The Shape of the Pain represent how playwright Rachel Bagshaw experiences chronic pain so accurately, that watching her own show makes it worse.Rosie Jones’ slow talking speed is a feature of her stand-up comedy routine. The funny woman with cerebral palsy offers her take on this month’s disability news.Jess Thom’s relaxed performance of Beckett’s Not I has been adapted to work with her untypical brain and body. She can’t quite believe how much “a non-disabled dead man” has captured her experience of Tourettes syndrome.Neil Hilborn is a performance poet with diagnoses of bipolar and obsessive compulsive disorder. His poem OCD has 62 million YouTube hits but he performs a new piece exclusively for us at the end of the show. Presented by Kate Monaghan and Simon Minty from the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Produced by Emma Tracey, the production assistant was Paul Johnston.Subscribe to Ouch as a weekly podcast and, if you wouldn't mind, we'd be delighted if you could review us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts from - it helps other people find us.

Lost Voice Guy uses an iPad to speak and has become an expert handler of awkward questions as a result.“Can you really not talk?” and “have you ever tried to speak to see what would happen?” are just two questions put to the comedian with cerebral palsy by drunk people after gigs. His many witty comebacks, including pretending he has a side-line as a satellite navigation system, are revealed in the 2nd of our podcasts from the BBC Ouch storytelling night at this year’s Edinburgh Festival. Also featured are Maura, an autistic woman with hair envy and “the social skills of a used teabag”, and Frank, who was rescued from a partial seizure by Al Pacino.The show is presented by Sofie Hagen and the producer is Ed Morrish.Subscribe to Ouch as a weekly podcast and, if you wouldn't mind, we'd be delighted if you could review us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts from - it helps other people find us.

Awkward! This week’s podcast, the first of two recorded live in Scotland, is all about a badly timed dislocation, a wheelchair user who stunned a nun by walking and the depressed man who got too good at pretending to like people. BBC Ouch recently took five listeners and two comedians to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where they told awkward tales relating to their disability or mental health difficulty to a live audience. It happened to Abbi Brown when she stunned a praying Parisian nun by getting up and walking away from her wheelchair. Angela Clarke forgot to tell a masseuse that her bones regularly dislocate, with predictably humorous consequences. Mark Granger’s social butterfly persona masks his depression and a genuine dislike of people so well that even the briefest of interactions can give them the wrong impression – especially single ladies. And awkward interactions with people won’t stop comedian Juliette Burton talking about her mental health and eating disorders at gigs.Presented by Sofie Hagen. Produced by Ed Morrish.This is the first of two podcasts from Ouch’s Storytelling Live event in Scotland. Next week we’ll meet Lost Voice Guy, an autistic woman with hair-envy and the man with a surprising Al Pacino-related strategy for combatting his non-epileptic seizures.Subscribe to Ouch as a weekly podcast and, if you wouldn't mind, we'd be delighted if you could review us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts from - it helps other people find us.

No doctors, no charities, no family members - just a frank conversation between two women with chronic illness, about navigating life when energy is at a premium. Faced with a box of random questions such as “do people think you’re lazy?” researcher Catherine Hale and blogger Natasha Lipman praise left-overs for dinner, extreme flexible working and the online chronic illness community. Ironing, and suggestions like “have you ever tried telling it to just go away?” get short shrift.This podcast is one in a series of monthly Ouch take-overs, produced by Damon Rose and Emma Tracey. If you have an idea for a future take-over, email ouch@bbc.co.uk.Subscribe to Ouch as a weekly podcast and, if you wouldn't mind, we'd be delighted if you could review us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts from - it helps other people find us.