Many of us are now tapping into Jon Snow’s C4 Paralympic  show as he builds GB excitement and connection with the Paralympic Games but being disabled doesn’t mean you have to enjoy watching or playing sport, does it? Hell no!

So says our very own Push Me comedian Laurence Clark and runner up in the Amused Moose Laughter awards  at this year’s Edinburgh Festival in his cracking blog for the Independent last week.

The Cultural Olympiad and Unlimited particularly was designed to sit alongside and complement the staging of the Olympic and Paralympic games – a one off opportunity to develop and showcase some of the best art by disabled artists in this country pushing it into startling relief.   

Disabled artists at their ‘peak’ have got there through determination and perseverance but the mechanisms and the drive that gets them to centre court is very different from their fellow Paralympians. They’ve had to stretch and  push, facing obstacles and challenges, of course; often weaving those things into the work itself.  But there’s no finishing line or record to break per se.  However, it’s true to say that as with all artists, they often take what’s personal to make their best work.

Take our Push artists. Caroline Bowditch  who charts her emigration experience, through Leaving Limbo Landing. Bobby Baker’s who crafts her journey to wellness in Mad Gyms and Kitchens. Claire Cunningham and her Menage a Trois with her crutches, Mish Weaver and her very own Box of Frogs bipolar circus show.  It’s the personal in this work that wins us all over.

The measure of it?  For Push it’s not about breaking records or personal best. It’s about how this work on this Unlimited platform will make a difference, make us all feel different and become the proper norm in all it’s variation because it’s outstanding and there’s a demonstrable thirst for it.

So that’s why we have to push like never before, to not only see this work  sit in a powerful synergy alongside and integral to The Games.  As Graeae’s Jenny Sealey told us last week ‘Being part of the Cultural Olympiad and Unlimited. It’s massive.’

Having spent time in Beijing at the Paralympics beyond the spectacle of the Opening Ceremony, I encountered little disabled led artistry. And 4 years on we’re cusping on the biggest celebration of Deaf and disabled – led art yet in the stadium and across the country.  We’re all set, let’s go!