Wolverhampton show's naked truth
A young sufferer of a rare blood disorder is to take to the stage naked to show audiences how living with her nightmare condition is like being in the "underworld".
Hannah Taylor, aged 24, is afflicted with Idiopathic Thrombocytopenic Purpura (ITP), and today and next Friday she'll perform nude in a thought-provoking piece of theatre to try and help people understand how it feels live with the disorder.
ITP is defined as isolated low platelet count in the blood, and can result in severe bruising and internal bleeding while also causing sufferers to feel crippling tiredness.
Theatre graduate and self-employed artist Hannah, from Chapel Ash, told how she found out about her disorder and how frightening it can be to live with.
She said: "It can be absolutely exhausting, I don't know how I finished my degree to be honest.
"I remember hadn't felt well for quite a while but I went for a night out to celebrate finishing university, but I woke up the next day with my legs covered in bruises.
"I'd slept for 12 hours and was really ill and was so tired that I could hardly move.
"Some of my friends thought I'd probably just drank too much, but one of them who studied biology said that I shouldn't be bruising the way I was and it sounded like I had a condition, so I went to my GP and was diagnosed.
"It can be very scary, I had to have my spleen out because my blood count got too low once.
"It can be treated with steroids and experimental drugs, but they obviously have their side effects.
"Nobody really knows about the condition."
Hannah is set to stun audiences when she dons nothing but white paint and holds a pomegranate under a red spotlight, symbolising ripeness.
She believes it will represent how she feels "unripe" when she's suffering from bruising.
The piece she'll perform at the Asylum Art Gallery in Clifton Street, is based around mythical Greek character Persephone, the queen of the underworld, whom she believes she shares similar parallels to as a sufferer of ITP.
Hannah said: "It's essentially about how she lives half of her life on earth, and half in the underworld, which is kind of what it's like."
Entry to the live shows is free. Both shows start at 7pm, but if people can't make it, videos of the 12-minute performance will be available at the centre to view throughout next week.
