Mouth-painting artist Henry Fraser reflects on musical about his life

An artist who paints with his mouth said things had been “pretty wild” since his life was depicted in a stage musical.

Henry Fraser, 32, who lives near Watford in Hertfordshire, was paralysed in an accident in 2009.

The Little Big Things, based on his memoir of the same name, has its final performance at Soho Place in London’s West End this weekend.

“They made something pretty special,” he said.

As a teenager, Fraser was a promising rugby player on the books of Premiership club Saracens.

During a post-exam holiday, aged 17, he dived into the sea and hit his head on the seabed, dislocating a vertebrae in his neck.

In 2015, he began experimenting with his tablet and rediscovered his love of art.

He found an app on his iPad that he could use to paint by attaching the utensils to a mouth stick.

As well as becoming an acclaimed mouth artist, he also began working as a motivational speaker.

His memoir, The Little Big Things, was published in 2017 and became a Sunday Times bestseller.

It has since been adapted into a musical by Nick Butcher, Tom Ling and Joe White, and opened at Soho Place in September 2023 for an initial 12-week run.

Subsequently extended for a further three months, it has so far picked up a Best Casting Direction award for Jill Green in the What’s On Stage awards and was nominated for Best New Musical.

Before the show opened, Fraser told BBC News he was “incredibly excited and nervous” about the prospect of seeing his story depicted on stage.

He said that since his accident, many unplanned things had happened that “really surprised me, in a great way” and the musical was one of them.

Ahead of its final performance on Saturday, he told the BBC: “It’s been a pretty wild six months.

“I can’t take credit for the cast and the production but the guys have made something pretty special.

“I was nervous beforehand and didn’t really promote it, but once I saw it, I promoted it everywhere – it was pretty awesome, I loved it.”

He added it was also important to him to see his family portrayed.

“A lot of the talks I do are about me,” he said, “so to have my family get the recognition they deserve means a lot… it was very emotional for all of us.”

In his life as a as a tetraplegic, one of Fraser’s quotes to “accept and adapt” is a lesson he said he has learnt through his experiences and is a message he tries to spread.

“You can’t dwell on what might have been or what your life could have been like because it holds you back,” he said.

As his journey from a hospital bed to rediscovering life through art and the people around him is portrayed in the musical, this is the message that comes across.

Jonny Amies plays Fraser in his younger years and wheelchair user Ed Larkin portrays him after the accident. Fraser said having this kind of representation was vital.

“It’s the first time a wheelchair user has been used as a lead in the West End so it was very special indeed,” he said.

“When I’ve been [at the show] all the wheelchair-user spaces were used up, there were people there who wanted to see someone like themselves depicted.

“Wheelchair users need to see themselves and everybody needs to see other people’s stories told to open their eyes to different lives from their own and that’s what theatre does.

“It’s also important for able-bodied people to see what disabled people can do with the correct systems in place.”

As Fraser waits to see what happens next for the show, he is turning his efforts to a new exhibition of his paintings at the Grove Hotel in Watford in September.

“I really need to get painting,” he said.

“For the last six months I’ve been enjoying everything surrounding the show so now I need to actually work, there’s going to be a lot of painting done.”