The Pepper Diaries

Poet, performer, participant, Penny Pepper records her experience of DaDaFest, Merseyside's disability and Deaf arts festival

DaDaFest feels like being on some wacky rock and roll tour. I’m chuffed and excited to be there. Days and nights blur into a rush of rehearsal and performance with scarcely a moment to see the city and the daylight. Only on Wednesday as the sun goes down, do I sneak in some shopping, glad to get acquainted with friendly Liverpool.

Whirling along by day in a melange of different creative practices, and evenings, if time and stamina allow, I go to see friends doing their stuff. Yet, time is tight. As well as being in Criptease, I’m at DaDaFest to be a “prowling poet” and appear in the John-Yoko inspired Bed-In,

I have many preparations, in between rehearsing my burlesque number. No Saturday off for Penny!

Saturday, and I make my way through the busy crowds for my bed-in. As Paperback Writer rings out, my PA assists me onto the bed. I do a storytelling slot, linking in moments in my life that I realise with hindsight had intersected with times of protest – and war. The most notable time being on the day my book Desires was published. I was there at BBC Broadcasting House, with Tony Cowell (brother of X Factor Simon) ready to do interviews… and the US invaded Iraq – and wiped me off the schedules!

I end the bed-in with a protest song. To the tune of Yellow Submarine, words handed out to the audience. Many join in with gusto as I sing verses I’d managed to write late the night before. This will be one of many poignant memories from my DaDaFest days.

I change clothes, readying myself to deliver poems amongst the buzzy throng. Nervous at first, I soon take to prowling my pieces with relish. As the DaDaFest theme is “Objects of Curiosity and Desire”, I devise a route and choose a suitable poem of mine on the theme. People like this game!

It is lovely to do burlesque training with Jo “Boobs” Weldon, who runs the New York School of Burlesque, to train us up for the DaDaFest event Criptease. The rehearsals fly past in a funny frenzy of set development and costume gathering.

All week the room is an explosion of tassels, glitter, a sparkly, spangly, glitzy glamour space gone wild and cripped out. We spend most of Sunday getting ready, and then…here we are! Six crip girlies wheeling and walking, stripping and shimmying our stuff with laughter and pride to the audience. A magnificent event and something burnt with love and joy on my memory.

• Penny was shortlisted for an Emerging Talent award at this year's festival.