2020 VISIONS (WHAT IF I HADN'T GONE BLIND) Comes to Adelaide Fringe

Could you see the funny side to going blind? Ten years on from losing most of his sight, Tom Skelton looks back at a decade of being blind and wonders what might have been. His 2020 visions explore his regrets, the what ifs, and the realities of life as a VIP (Visually Impaired Person!). Skelton ruefully imagines his sighted self going on to shape the last ten years of history, but would Tom from 2020 really swap places with fantasy Tom with 20:20 vision? Perth Fringe World Weekly Comedy Award Winner 2020!

Tom developed Leber's Hereditary Optic Neuropathy (a genetic eye condition that runs in his family) ten years ago, leaving him with 5% vision, and first noticed some loss of sight at the Edinburgh Fringe, when fellow performers on stage became blurry, and he started to struggle to read the information on tickets. His sight quickly deteriorated and he was diagnosed weeks later at the end of 2009. This obviously changed the next decade of Tom's life irreversibly and in this show, Tom envisions the 2010s if he had not lost his sight and contrasts these dreams with the reality of living with his disability.

Tom first examined blindness and disability in his comedy when he told the story of his own sight loss and explored the history of blindness in his seminal show Blind Man's Bluff , which had smash hit runs at Perth Fringe World, the Edinburgh Fringe and Melbourne International Comedy Festival. His follow up show, Blind Eye Spy, imagined an improbable adventure in his future as a blind spy in post-Brexit Berlin, and now Tom looks at the decade in between; both the blind reality and sighted fantasy. This is Tom's third appearance at Adelaide Fringe after successful runs in 2016, 2017 and 2019 and his sixth solo show overall after Foolball, the history of the greatest football (soccer!) club that never existed, 2016's dystopian Orwellian satire 2061, Tom Skelton's Macbeth, his one man take on 'The Scottish Play', Blind Man's Bluff and Blind Eye Spy.

Aside from his solo shows, Tom has been performing for well over a decade, in a variety of genres. He starred in the BAFTA-award winning History Bombs, and Did You hear What I Saw? was a family friendly children's show about Tom's relationship with his best friend and fellow comedian Tom GK, who happens to have hearing loss. This show examined the nature of disability in a comic and moving way, and was featured on ABC Radio National's Life Matters. He has also established himself as one of the stars of the improvised comedy scene, being labelled by UK improv impresario Steve Roe as "one of my favourite improvisers to watch ever".

Tom stars in Adelaide Fringe five-star smashes Adventures of the Improvised Sherlock Holmes, plays with improv giants The Big Hoo Haa, and is a founding member of UK improv comedy sensations Racing Minds, who appeared on BBC Radio 6 Music, were twice nominated for the Perth Fringe World Comedy Award, and have over 600,000 followers on SoundCloud for their Wireless Podcast.

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