
Mind the Gap
Mind the Gap is England’s largest learning disability theatre company that creates work for UK and international audiences.
Our vision is to work in an arts sector where there is equal opportunity for performers with learning disabilities: a world where performers are trained, respected and employed equally, and feature every day on our stages and screens.
We work in partnership with learning-disabled artists to deliver a bold, cutting-edge and world-class artistic programme that impacts locally, nationally and internationally. Work that excites, surprises and challenges audiences.
Our aim is to make great theatre that makes audiences think differently. By “theatre” we don’t just mean shows that you can see in arts and theatre venues, but also performances and events in different spaces and places.
Mind the Gap Academy
Mind the Gap’s Academy is the perfect place for learning-disabled adults to kick start their career in performing arts.
The Performance Academy is our full time training programme for people who want to develop a career in theatre. We also run three part time (one day per week) courses in Acting, Dance and Music, which are the perfect introduction to our Academy and a chance to learn new skills.
All of our courses are accredited and students will work towards an Arts Award (up to 25 years old) or gain accreditation through Certa (aged 26+).

Related Content
What does ‘A Little Space’ mean to the cast of Mind the Gap?
March 18, 2020The term "a little space” can mean different things to people and Paul Wilshaw, Assistant Producer, talks to the cast of this latest Mind the Gap production to obtain an insight into their own feelings and experiences gained when touring. 1986, the year I was ...
Still Minding the Gap – 30 years on…
June 20, 2018This week is Learning Disability Awareness Week (18th – 24th June) and right in the middle of it Europe’s leading learning disability theatre company, Yorkshire’s own Mind the Gap, will celebrate its 30th birthday. To mark its 30th year Mind the Gap will spend the next ...
Alan Clay, the lyrical legend from Leeds performs Skip Rap
February 8, 2018Skip Rap is learning-disabled artist, performer, stand up comedian and rapper Alan 'Cool' Clay's debut solo show. It fuses hip-hop, theatre, digital imagery and junk, ruminating on what it's like to be treated like trash. Vicky Hiles and Gill Crawshaw went to see Skip Rap at ...
Going Underground VAULT Festival: London’s Biggest Arts Explosion
January 22, 2018Deep down inside the subterranean underworld beneath Waterloo Station lie the Vaults. Here in these cavernous bunkers you will find yourself immersed in the biggest performing arts festival in London. Natasha Sutton-Williams previews four of the top disability shows. There are over 300 shows to choose ...
Well, you don’t look disabled: the thorny issue of visible impairments taking centre stage
August 30, 2017Paul Wilshaw is an actor with Mind the Gap theatre company, based in Bradford. He’s been interested in theatre, television and the soaps from a young age, but struggles with casting that demands a specific ‘type’ of impairment. I started acting at the age of 10 ...
Mind the Gap’s Mia, Daughters of Fortune: don’t drop the baby
August 14, 2017Informative but not necessarily engaging: Paul F Cockburn reviews Mind the Gap’s theatrical exploration of learning disabilities and parenthood, currently playing at Summerhall, at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Around 2% of people in England have a learning disability. Around 7% of them are parents. Around two ...
Creative Minds North: an arts conference with a difference
July 11, 2017Creative Minds North in Manchester was the first ever arts conference entirely devised and delivered by learning disabled artists. Last month, over 200 attendees from learning-disabled and non-learning-disabled arts organisations across the North, including West Yorkshire Playhouse and The Lowry, met to consider four themes: ...
Creative Minds brings fourth Disability-Led Arts Conference to the North
April 25, 2017Learning disabled artists are asking big questions at the fourth Creative Minds conference, taking place at HOME Manchester on Thursday 15 June 2017. Following successful events in Brighton, Ipswich and Bristol, Creative Minds brings together nine organisations from across the North of England, each committed ...
Belgian company Theater Stap bring ‘To Belong’ to SICK! Festival
March 23, 2017On 20 March, 2017, as part of SICK! Festival, the Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts in University of Sussex, hosted Theater Stap from Belgium on a whistle-stop European tour with their production To Belong. Review by Colin Hambrook. Theater Stap have a track record of ...
Let’s Talk Access in the Arts
March 21, 2017On 10 March, Mind the Gap and West Yorkshire Playhouse hosted a ‘TED-talk style symposium’ Let’s Talk Access in the Arts which brought together industry experts sharing best practice on how to make the arts and theatre more accessible for learning-disabled artists. Kate Lovell took ...
Crossing the Line: leaping over barriers
February 24, 2017Arts journalist, Bella Todd reflects on Crossing the Line festival, which took place in Roubaix, France from 24-26 January 2017. It was a collaborative project bringing together three leading learning disability theatre companies from across Europe: Sweden’s Moomsteatern, France’s Compagnie de L’Oiseau Mouche and England’s ...
Mind the Gap take critically renowned show CONTAINED to Roubaix, France
January 23, 2017Mind the Gap, England’s largest learning disability theatre company is heading to Roubaix, France from Tuesday 24th to Thursday 26th January 2017 for their Crossing the Line Festival. Three days of performances, workshops, screenings, discussions and networking opportunities from three leading European, learning-disability theatre companies: ...
Creative Minds: Mind the Gap: ‘Daughters of Fortune ‘Mia’
November 21, 2016Four members of Razed Roof Theatre Company went to a performance of Mia by Mind the Gap and sent in the following responses: Review by Emma Hutchin What the company trying to say? What was it about? To tell a story about pregnancy and parenthood and also motherhood. How ...
National Paralympic Day and Liberty Festival returns to Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park
August 16, 2016The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has announced plans for this year’s ground-breaking National Paralympic Day and Liberty Festival, which returns to Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park on Saturday 3 September, featuring world-premiere shows, giant interactive games and ParalympicsGB Carnival. Taking place four years on from the London ...
Disability is not a spectator sport: the importance of art that reflects the experience of disability
April 4, 2016Reflecting on Mind the Gap’s latest production, Contained, which tells the personal stories of its performers, Allan Sutherland argues that work which reflects disabled people’s experience of disability is essential to counter non-disabled narratives and assumptions. Contained is a sophisticated multi-media show, but at its core ...
Mind the Gap: ‘Contained’
March 23, 2016Combining live performance, film, photography, music and dance, Contained explores those small moments in life that suddenly become charged and life changing. As the cast from 'Mind the Gap' present themselves to their audience the show displays clear political intent, says Colin Hambrook. Contained tells everyday stories ...
I am me, I am here and I am fine – Paul Wilshaw on ‘CONTAINED’
March 17, 2016Performer Paul Wilshaw reflects on what it has been like baring himself on stage for Mind the Gap's new touring show, CONTAINED, in an illuminating behind-the-scenes account of this unique production. My name is Paul Wilshaw. I am a performer at Mind the Gap on the ...
Creative Minds: Sarah Watson reviews Mind the Gap’s Contained
February 25, 2016Contained 'True Stories from the Heart' took place at the New Wolsely Theatre, Ipswich on 9 March. Review by Sarah Watson. “CONTAINED is a vibrant, compelling and personal new show from England’s largest professional learning-disabled theatre company; nine interwoven stories about family and friendships, love and ...
Mind the Gap announce new tour dates for CONTAINED
January 20, 2016England’s largest learning-disabled theatre company, Mind the Gap have announced a new tour of CONTAINED, a vibrant, compelling and personal project. Over the last year, Mind the Gap has been working with Alan Lyddiard (Artistic Director of the Performance Ensemble and former Artistic Director of Northern ...
‘Theatres of Learning Disability’: Good, Bad or Plain Ugly
September 24, 2015Published by Palgrave Macmillan, Matt Hargrave’s is the first book to focus exclusively on theatre and learning disability from an artistic perspective. Over five years Hargraves researched the work of several companies and artists giving detailed analysis of work by Back To Back, Mind the ...
Trish Wheatley on Critiquing Learning Disability Performance
March 24, 2015On Monday 23rd March 2015 Mind the Gap hosted a conference about international learning disability performance. Trish Wheatley was asked to speak on the panel about critiquing learning disability performance – the ‘Quality’ debate. The extended version is published here. I was thinking about an instance a few ...
Music From the Outer Edges
July 19, 2014Gus Garside is a freelance consultant with considerable experience of working within the learning disability arts world. The following essay is grounded with the extensive work he has done with learning disabled musicians as project manager, mentor and access consultant. Listening to Aimee Richardson play the ...