Wheelchair Access Review: Proud Cabaret Embankment

I feel as though every time I sit down to write a blog, I always start with some variation of ‘it has been a pretty difficult couple of weeks’ and an apology for my lack of posting. But it has been, and so my blog has been neglected yet again as I didn’t just want to write a rambling post about how I feel like crap.

The other week I headed up to Media City in Salford to spend a couple of days with my BBC mentor. I had a really interesting time and apart from a horrid crash on Monday night, I was really glad to go there. I definitely pushed myself physically, but it was the emotional crash afterwards (and the ensuing, unavoidable physical crash) that has been extremely hard to deal with.

I think I’m pretty good at getting on with things, pushing the way I feel about my health and my body to the back of my mind and just trying as hard as I can to do as much as I can (even if that means resting). But getting confronted with the things I can’t do, and the work I could literally be doing if I were healthier, just really gets to me sometimes and I find it incredibly hard to cope.

Recently, I’ve been getting more and more stir crazy – sick to death of the four white walls of my bedroom – and unable to find a real solution.

So, if I’m gonna be curled up in bed feeling like shit, I might as well slash on some lipstick and go out and try and do something that will cheer me up and then still feel shit. Because I literally can’t stay in bed all the time or I will start throwing soft toys and yelling ‘IMAGINE I’M HAVING A TANTRUM’ because I’m too tired to have an actual one.

Now that I’m a new wheelchair user (something that I am planning on writing about, but you can read a little bit here since I’ve not covered it on my blog yet), I thought I’d start a little series reviewing the places that I go in terms of access, and the things I learn along the way.

Let’s start off with my visit last Saturday to Proud Cabaret Embankment.

As always, I can only speak to my own access needs and experiences. I took my small powerchair to help with my chronic pain and fatigue.

Beforehand

It wasn’t clear from their website if the venue was accessible, but from other ones I had been to in the past, I wasn’t really expecting very much. I was considering going to Cafe de Paris, but I know that the building isn’t accessible at all, nor is the local station, and I’m really not physically able to even think about trying to walk around central London at the moment.

I sent an email late at night, and received a reply early the next morning saying that Proud was, indeed, wheelchair accessible from the ground floor. I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised at the quick and positive response, and was also told that staff have been trained to assist disabled customers. So, we booked a couple of tickets, and I emailed them my reference number and they made a note with my booking.

Getting there

Unfortunately, my local station isn’t wheelchair accessible, and getting to one by bus takes bloody ages.

Here’s the thing that’s frustrating: because so many tube stations aren’t accessible, journey time for some places I’d like to go are literally doubled – and considering I don’t live in central London, an additional 30-60 mins is quite normal.

Usually, I don’t bother going to places that will take me round the houses, and so am having to find new options to places I’ve been going to for at least a decade. The time issue is important to me because just travelling into town generally causes a huge amount of fatigue (just being out of bed in my flat for 20 minutes is exhausting for me), so I need to try and minimise my ‘out time’ as much as possible. I mean, I really don’t wanna be fully knocked out before I even get wherever I need to go. Which is usually the case!

Dad very kindly drove us to Kingsbury station, which according to TFL is fully wheelchair accessible from the train. Getting into the station and down to the platform was great – hooray for working lifts – and I was feeling super optimistic. However, once the train arrived, we noticed that the gap was pretty big and my chair slammed into the empty space and couldn’t make it on the train.

Luckily, I’m able to get out of my chair, so we switched it to manual, I popped out, and Sebastian picked it up and forced it onto the train. Bear in mind, this is a bloody heavy chair, and the number of times he has to do it when we go out is absurd. If I was alone, I’d have been stuck and dependent on random people on the train to help.

The rest of the journey to Blackfriars station (Temple, the closest station, is not accessible) went pretty well and we didn’t have any further trouble getting there (I don’t think?!). It took about 10 minutes to roll to the venue.

One thing that I’ve really started to realise is how bad the pavements in so many parts of London are. It’s not just that it’s quite uncomfortable, but I have an extremely precarious body, and I actually think that rolling along on pavements that are constantly jolting me, is shaking me up quite badly, as I’ve been having worse physical reactions after being out than I would expect. This is extremely frustrating, especially as my neck always gets so much worse after being out on bad pavements.

I’m writing this a few days later, so I may have left one or two snafoos out, but coming back as far as I can remember we definitely had issues getting off the train at Westminster to change onto the Jubilee line (HUGE gap on the District line) and there may have been one more, but I forget.

Next time, at the suggestion of my colleague Ellis, I’ll try and take those gaps backwards and see if that helps and will save poor Sebastian lifting my chair every time!

My experience

Proud Embankment is a new cabaret club under Waterloo bridge, and we went along for their last night of previews. Tickets were 50% off, so we each payed £20 for access to the show and a drink.

The security staff at the door opened the rope-y things to let me in easily, and made sure to clear the paths and open both doors. One of them came inside with us, and immediately directed us to go and sit to the side, away from everyone queuing at the reception, and found a member of staff who had my booking details ready and waiting.

We were whisked upstairs in a lift and taken to our table. The whole process took just a few minutes and the staff were super lovely and very helpful. Considering this was my first ‘evening out’ to a ‘night venue’ in a long time (and it’s the type of thing old me just loved), let alone my first time out out in the chair, I was pretty nervous.

In a way, though, having a physical representation of my disability made me feel more confident. My whole life I’ve had to go out and beg for help when people didn’t believe me because there was no sign that I needed assistance.

Because we chose the drinks option (I went alcohol-free, as always, sad), we had a table reserved upstairs, as downstairs where the stage is is for people choosing the dining option (although there was sadly nothing on the menu that I’d be able to eat so paying for that would have been a waste of money).

We were almost directly above the stage, with a pretty good view, but I had to kind of crouch a bit in my chair and peek through the gap in the railings. It was fine, but definitely lost a lot of the atmosphere. The building itself is beautiful, and once the tables are removed can hold 750 people.

Staff would check in to make sure we had everything we needed, and when my blood pressure started to drop and I got a bit wonky, they brought my some cashews and a salt shaker to try and help bring that up. I even had a mini dance party with the woman managing the light behind the table.

We decided not to stay as it turned into a club, and went to navigate the lift going down ourselves instead of waiting for a member of staff to be free, as it was all very busy at the end of the show. It’s one of those ones where you have to hold a button for it to move.

Obviously, being out generally and light and sound can be difficult, but this is a cabaret and so I was expecting to struggle a bit with that, but that was my choice. The show was broken up into three, which gave me some time to rest, although I do feel like overall we were out for longer than I should have been.

The loo situation

The first time I went to the loo, I decided to walk there since it was pretty close to my table. I could see there was a door to navigate and a pretty small gap between some of the chairs people had moved and the wall.

There are two sets of doors from the main floor to get to the disabled loo (the main loos are down a set of stairs), but they weren’t particularly heavy.

The loo was locked, and there was no staff around. I was considering trying to walk down the stairs, but my knees were too wobbly and my legs too shaky and I knew it wouldn’t be safe. So I waited for a member of staff and asked for the key, explaining that I was disabled (even though I didn’t look it!) and my wheelchair was just outside.

They brought the key and let me in. As I closed the door, I heard him being told off for letting me, someone who didn’t look visibly disabled, into the loo. He said that I’d said my wheelchair was outside, and I then (I’d been wearing a jumpsuit which I already had half off so wasn’t gonna open the door!) shouted through the door that my wheelchair was outside if he wanted to check.

I left, found someone to tell them to re-lock the door and went back to my table.

After that, I decided to take my chair just to make things easier. Staff that were passing opened doors for me, and one even gave me his phone with a torch because the light wasn’t working super well.

Verdict

Overall, I was really impressed with my night at Proud. I thoroughly enjoyed the show, although wish I could have been sitting downstairs to really soak up the atmosphere, and was really impressed with the professionalism and kindness of the staff. My highlight of the evening was Dave the Bear – his royal hairiness and burlesque performer extraordinaire – who really was just a total joy.

From start to finish, I feel like my needs were met, and the evening felt wholly unstressful from a health perspective, which is a total rarity for me. Like, I just realised that this was one of the first times I’ve been out to an ‘event’ in a very long time and not cried at some point because access related stuff has been so poor (both physically and emotionally).

Recommendations

I have a couple of small recommendations that could make the night even better for people with access needs like mind:

1. Clearly putting their access information on their website – making the layout of the building clear and anything they have in place to help their disabled customers.
2. Consider giving wheelchair users (or anyone that requires access to them) a temporary key to the disabled loos so that we don’t have to find a member of staff every time we need a wee. A good option could be to get a Radar key lock installed.
3. I don’t know if this is possible anyway because I didn’t ask, but it would be fab if people who can’t really see the stage comfortably from the balcony could get a seat/table downstairs even if they’re not getting dinner.
4. Making sure customers at other tabled keep their chairs actually behind the table as much as possible to prevent obstructions to walkways which can make it difficult for others to get past safely.

And finally…

Even though I’m paying for it now (an extra special shout-out to the horrific pavements along Embankment), we’ll definitely return (because a cabaret I can actually get to will get all my money).

We’ll probably take a table downstairs, even if there’s not really anything I can eat. I think the atmosphere will be far better than sitting alone at a table on the second level and it will be more comfortable than peeking through the railings, but this will, of course, depend on the post preview prices as it may not be financially feasible.

Do you have any recommendations of accessible cabarets? Let me know below!