EXXY – Leeds Playhouse

Dan Daw is described as a queer, crippled dance artist and EXXY traces his journey from a disabled working class kid deep in the Australian outbreak to international touring performer.

EXXY is Aussie slang for ‘that’s expensive, mate’, and It’s a deeply personal response to the success of his last self titled show that left Daw with the sort of imposter syndrome that most working class artists will recognise. The good news is that EXXY on the whole works as Daw uses spoken word and dance to reflect on his life and work.

This show is presented as part of the Leeds based Transform Festival that brings challenging international acts to the city, and they have a proud record of supporting disabled led theatre companies. As does Leeds Playhouse, and this is a really inclusive production with subtitles and a BSL interpreter so no-one is excluded.

After a quite unique opening sequence, Daw clad in a leather kilt introduces three other performers who walk and talk very much like him, and all four offer wry takes on their own disabilities  This show that doesn’t shy away from the sense of disabled people being othered by society, and being so open forces you to think hard about what part you might play in changing that, which is surely the purpose of art.

As each performer finishes their testimony, they begin to move round the stark set together, but with bodies that negate uniformity, and it was refreshing to see dancers who are a long way from the lithe perfection you see in other forms of movement like ballet. Both are valid in their own ways, but it is a reminder that dance doesn’t always need perfection – it just needs to touch your soul.

There is plenty of dark humour as Daw and Joe have a verbal battle to decide who is best at cerebral palsy, including Daw’s shocking memory of when he went round a bloke’s house for a hook up and had the door slammed in his face. In a close contest Daw proved to be best at CP.

There’s lots of movement in an always engaging show that occasionally lacks strong narrative focus as Sofia and Tiiu perform their own dance routines to bangin electronic music, offering a window into their worlds as disabled artists using their own bodies to challenge outdated perceptions of what they can offer.  

The stage is dotted with clumps of Saltburn shrubs that somehow manage to thrive in the arid conditions of Daw’s outback home, which he uses as an apt running metaphor for the resilience and perseverance of all four performers who refused to wilt.

The show ends with The Power of Love that Daw’s supportive grandmother used to sing with him and the audience is invited to sing along. When the youth theatre group sat next to me in the balcony seats began to sing along it was a moment when any sense of Dan Daw as an imposter was firmly swept aside. 

Reviewer: Paul Clarke

Reviewed: 22nd October 2025

North West End UK Rating: