The year 2009 witnessed the publication of a themed edition of "Research in Drama Education" on disability (vol. 14, no. 1). This is a "first", and the author comes to this review as a disability studies academic with no background in writing on drama or the arts more generally, and this was the preferred approach to reviewing expressed by the journal editor. In presenting a fresh gaze on the themed edition the author hopes to better open up the work on drama and disability to wider scrutiny, to transcend shibboleths, to offer a reflexive account back to the contributors. There are as might be expected from a collected edition of this kind very disparate ideas presenting in the 12 papers in the themed edition. In this article, the author draws out what seem the most important messages in the themed edition. (Contains 1 note.)