Blue Badge Bunch is an award-winning Disabled-led theatre and events company who provide original digitally interactive and game-based theatre and workshop experiences for family audiences, schools, festivals and corporate settings.

Led by comedian Benny Shakes and producer Susanna Clark, Blue Badge Bunch specialise in accessible and interctive kids shows for all ages. Our shows have toured the UK multiple times, been nominated and won several theatre awards, consistently received four and five star reviews and incredible audience feedback for our work.

Blue Badge Bunch has been running for over three years, and in that time has toured the UK three times, with successful runs at the Pleasance Courtyard at the Edinburgh Fringe, appearing at Vault Festival and many other prestigious theatres and festivals across the UK, as well as at schools and community groups, receiving critical acclaim for its disabled representation, educational value and innovative, fun games.

The company’s original show under the same name (Blue Badge Bunch) is a game show where each game represents a different disability – drawing with your feet, making lunch one handed while being prodded, sensory overload while following instructions or guessing the symbol sentences from an AAC device.

Our latest show Slugageddon! from Blue Badge Bunch host Benny Shakes – exploring biodiversity and gardening through fun, interactive games – won Channel 4’s Last Leg Hans Award and has toured the country, with a hit run at the 2026 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

To enquire about booking the show, please email us at bluebadgebunch@gmail.com.

Reviews

Slugageddon!

Slugs, slugs and more slugs! Can you help Benny Shakes defeat the slug army with a piano made of vegetables, some delicious compost and a final showdown with the King Slug? Interactive and multimedia games, plenty of facts about biodiversity and of course, slugs! 

With some actually really great gardening tips for the grown ups… Best Kids Show Nominee – UK Kids’ Comedy Festival. 

Winner of Channel 4’s Last Leg Hans Award. Winner of the Disability Champions Award. 

Reviews

Blue Badge Bunch

Ever tried drawing with your feet? Made your lunch one-handed? Had a go at audio description? It’s trickier than you think…! The perfect way to spend your afternoon, whatever your abilities. Join your host, comedian Benny Shakes, as the audience battle it out in a game show where disadvantage is an advantage!

WINNERS of the Disability Champions Award 2023

Lyn Gardner’s VAULT Festival 2023 Top Picks

New York Times Pick of Edinburgh Fringe 2024

Creator Benny Shakes has been performing comedy since 2019. After making a splash on the comedy scene, the pandemic hit, and Benny was forced to take his ideas online. Benny created game show Blue Badge Bunch, where comedians sent in videos of themselves taking part in challenges that highlighted disability. Once Benny was allowed to perform in person again, he took the show to Bradford Fringe and never looked back.

Benny found through his life that people would show him pity, not speak directly to him, assume that he was intoxicated, or unable to communicate. The driving force behind the show is to show people the societal and physical challenges disabled people live with every day, to inspire celebration of disability and educate children and adults.

This issue of disability is very badly neglected in most discussions around diversity, and as a result voices of disabled people themselves are almost absent. Benny continues to research and present insight into disabled people’s experiences and recommendations for the future and is determined that as Blue Badge Bunch grows it will provide many more professional and public opportunities for disabled people.

The Blue Badge Bunch show and workshops were initially supported by New Art Exchange’s European Regional Development Fund and has subsequently gained two rounds of Arts Council Funding for development and touring and more recently has been supported by Attenborough Arts Centre.

The show won the Disability Champions Award in 2023 and was shortlisted for the Neurodiverse Representation Award at the Edinburgh Fringe 2022, where it received fantastic reviews, going on to return to the festival due to popular demand 2023-2024.

THE TEAM

Benny Shakes – Host and Creator

Benny Shakes has cerebral palsy and has been performing comedy since 2019, making a name for himself on the circuit as a formidable and talented act. Benny has had three successful Arts Council projects, starting with a research project into the barriers faced by disabled comedians where he interviewed disabled performers such as Aaron Simmonds and Lost Voice Guy on his weekly show Benny Shakes Things Up, plus two rounds of funding for development and touring of Blue Badge Bunch.

Benny’s ambition is to inspire and make as many people laugh as he can. In early 2020 he was rising up the ranks of the comedy circuit, appearing at comedy clubs across the UK, when the pandemic struck. In order to continue his comedy career, Benny organised the bi-weekly disabled comedians Zoom meet up and started an online game show which eventually became the show you see today.

Joe Dickens – Creative Director / Animator

Joe has been involved in the entertainment and comedy industry since 2001, creating experiences for a variety of audiences, with live events expertise, as well as technical industry knowledge across sound, lighting, peripherals and installation. Joe is the animator, games designer and technical designer for Blue Badge Bunch and Slugageddon! and leads wraparound workshops, while building anything from interactive props to potato pianos. He is also the creative director, keeping Benny and the slugs in check at all times.

Mark Nicholas – Host

Mark Nicholas is an autistic stand-up comedian and workshop leader, he is also a Max Turner Competition Quarter Finalist, Stand Up Nights Competition Semi Finalist, G&B New Act Competition Runner up, Online Gong Mad Winner and Comedy Store Manchester King Gong Winner 2021.

He recently appeared at the Comedy Store London. Mark is MC and promoter for the fantastic Laugh-Able Comedy night, both resident and touring, performing alongside headliners such as Rosie Jones, Fatiha El-Ghorri & John Robertson.

Neil Ben – Guest/Host

A BAFTA nominated writer/director who started working at BBC Schools in the early 90s, making programmes like Words and Pictures, Megamaths and Teletubbies.

Born with Klippel-Feil syndrome, Neil uses his lived experience to inform his work; specialising in writing for, and directing disabled talent.

Ems Coombes – Guest/Host

Ems is a comedian and performer who had a brain haemorrhage and a stroke when she was 17 and, in her words,  it ‘makes me more awesome!

She is a stalwart for Disability Rights,  having been the founder of Strictly Collaborative, an Inclusive arts company for disabled and non-disabled people to work together and dispel negative connotations.

Sarah Smith – BSL interpreter

Sarah has interpreted for Blue Badge Bunch since the beginning. Sarah knows the BBB team well and is excellent at conveying the show to a d/Deaf audience, particularly when things go off-script (which they often do!).

Unphased by the funny and chaotic nature of BBB, Sarah is well equipped to make d/Deaf audiences feel included.

Susanna Clark – Producer

Susanna is the Managing Director of the Comedy Agency Ingenious Fools representing a roster of stellar comedians, with a focus on diversity. Susanna has been the producer and fundraiser for Blue Badge Bunch since the very beginning.

She has a track record of designing and implementing innovative touring shows combined with outreach workshops to theatre venues, organisations and community groups, as well as libraries and schools.

If Blue Badge Bunch was a family (which it is), Susanna would be mother goose.

Talent Programme Winners 2025

In 2024, we launched a call-out for a brand new talent programme, nurturing new disabled and neurodivergent comedy talent.

The programme sees three disabled/neurodivergent comedians or performers the opportunity to perform on Blue Badge Bunch, take part in training sessions, host and run Blue Badge Bunch workshops and gain new performance credits working with experienced disabled comedians on our critically acclaimed kids game show.

The following performers were selected for our 2025 scheme:

Gabriella Rolls
Gabriella Rolls is an up and coming comedian who’s performed at nights including So You Think You’re Funny and various UKC Comedy Society nights, of which she is the president.

Find her on Instagram @cerebralrollsy

Calum Brennan
Calum Brennan is 30 years’ old and lives in Southampton. He properly started his comedy journey in October 2023 and in that time won Hampshire’s Rookie Comedian of the Year 2024, along with other personal highlights. Despite becoming Savannah Sight impaired at the age of five, Calum doesn’t shy away from what makes him different and continues to play with the cards he’s been dealt. 

Find him on X @thecalumbrennan

Kevin Randell
Kevin Randell is a comedian and writer based in Sheffield, who’s performed comedy up and down the country, and even appeared on an episode of The Chase.

Find him on Youtube @thatbeepinguyinawheelchair
Follow him on TikTok @thatbeepingguyinawheelchair