Aaron Pang brings a bold and provocative solo show to the Edinburgh Fringe 2025 with Falling: A Disabled Love Story. Drawing from personal experience, the piece explores love, sex, and identity after a life-changing spinal cord injury.
This autobiographical performance challenges the tropes of “inspiration porn” and the sanitised narratives often told about disabled lives. With sharp humour and raw honesty, Pang invites audiences to confront their own assumptions.
Falling: A Disabled Love Story runs from 30 July to 25 August (not 6th or 14th) at 3:00 PM at Pleasance Courtyard (Bunker 2). Tickets available here.
You’re bringing Falling: A Disabled Love Story to Pleasance Courtyard — what can you tell us about the show?
The show answers the question “what happened?” which people ask all the time because I walk with a cane. I got tired of telling people one at a time, so I decided to write a solo show, and I’m going to pack as many airport security agents, Uber drivers, and curious strangers on the street as I can into the theatre to get it done in one go.
The show is about my strange and very funny journey to find love after getting disabled at the age of 18. What happened is actually quite complicated because it is two stories — one that people have heard a thousand times and one that people have never heard.
The show is based on your own experiences — how did you approach turning such personal material into a performance?
I think I have to understand what the experiences I have lived through mean to me first before I can put it out into the world. Being disabled is my truth, and once I understand that truth, I think the stage opens itself as a place to explore that.
This show confesses some things that at an earlier point in my life I think I would’ve been ashamed to admit, but now I understand my relationship with that shame, which makes showing the world much less scary.
I am able to tell the truth of my disability in part due to the people closest to me — my partner and director Connie Chen, my family, my friends. If the people who actually have a real impact on my life accept and celebrate my truth, then I’m not afraid to put it out for audiences to see.
You describe the show as “uncomfortably sexy and hilariously vulnerable” — how do you strike that balance on stage?
This show is about my journey to find love and sex. And I think that this phrase “uncomfortably sexy and hilariously vulnerable” perfectly captures the very complex and human act of having sex in general.
I know most of us fantasize about having that perfectly romantic and steamy moment in the bedroom, but (spoiler alert) having had real sex with real people, I’ve come to realize that some of my most joyous moments in the bedroom are silly moments, and some of my most uncomfortable moments are when I take myself too seriously.
The way that it manifests on the stage is to write and act towards the truth of sex. Because once you make true observations, it becomes overwhelmingly obvious that it is both hilarious and sexy, uncomfortable and vulnerable all at the same time.
Falling challenges common narratives around disability. What are some of the tropes or assumptions you’re hoping to dismantle?
When you see a “sick” or disabled character in a story, we naturally expect that throughout the journey of the story, that character will somehow “heal” — either metaphorically or literally. That need to “heal” limits the type of disabled stories we can tell, because only stories of “inspiration” are platformed. What happens to those of us who can’t heal? How can our stories exist?
The other assumption/truth that I hope to talk about through the show is around disabled sex. First, I want to point out that we as a society discriminate against disabled people when it comes to dating and intimacy. So many disabled people have a really hard time experiencing this crucial part of human experience.
The second is to point out that for those disabled people who do have sex, because of the differences in our bodies, our sex might look quite different than vanilla able-bodied sex.
Audience participation and misdirection play a big role in the show — how do you use these tools to shift perspectives?
To try to challenge “inspiration porn” is very hard because the basic sentiment “wow your story is so inspirational” seems so positive. And to challenge this positivity feels inelegant because “why critique a positive thing?”
Except, living as a disabled person, you see that that reaction is super common and actually codified into many of our institutions. The misdirection is an act of showing, not telling. These fun moments show the audiences themselves, which makes them much more open to changing their own minds.
What would you say to anyone thinking of booking to see Falling: A Disabled Love Story?
You should come see the show if you want to change the foundation of how you view disabled people (not for the better or worse, only for the hornier).
