Liz Carr is savouring the attention. The British comedian, disability rights campaigner and actor, best-known for playing Clarissa Mullery in the BBC's long-running forensic crime drama Silent Witness, is in town to perform at the comedy festival. As a 44-year-old who has used a wheelchair since she was a child, Carr "loves" being recognised on the street for her television work rather than being stared at for her frail appearance.

"I'm an exhibitionist, so it is a thrill but, I don't know, there's a power to it," she says. "Normally, as a disabled person you can feel that you are invisible and that people's perceptions of you are so negative."

Her new show Assisted Suicide: The Musical opens next week and, if things go to plan, the issue Carr has campaigned over for more than 15 years – the dangers of proposed euthanasia laws for people with disabilities – will get some much-needed public attention, too.

Later this year the Victorian Parliament will vote on a bill to legalise physician-assisted dying, designed to alleviate suffering and pain for terminally ill people in the last six months of their life. Carr's musical, billed as a 'TED talk with show tunes', presents an interesting counterargument to the pro-euthanasia camp. It premiered in London last September, exactly a year after the UK Parliament voted against adopting similar euthanasia legislation (Carr and disability rights organisation Not Dead Yet were vocal opponents).

Although she has no desire to prolong people's suffering Carr believes that legally assisted dying (a term she rejects, preferring the less "palatable" but equally descriptive assisted suicide) has dangerous consequences for people with disabilities. "Of course, we're not coming at this saying we want people to suffer; that's ridiculous," she says. "We all want people to have a good death. The only thing we disagree on is how to do that and I'm not convinced that the rights of those who say that they want that end outweigh the risks of getting it wrong."

Not only could there be tragic miscarriages of justice, she says, but the laws could change the way society views people with disabilities and even how those people view themselves. "When you talk about pain, of course, it's really compelling," says Carr about the pro-assisted suicide argument. "But in Oregon, USA, which is often cited as the state where there's been legislation for 20 years now, pain figures as one of the last reasons why people want it. It's always about lack of dignity and lack of autonomy."

In Carr's view, confronting loss of autonomy and dignity are part and parcel of living life as a disabled person. "Shouldn't we be looking at ways to support people living and dying with dignity rather than making it easier for them to end their lives?

"There are compelling arguments on both sides but I don't think we hear both sides and that's why I made the show. But I hopefully made a show that wherever you sit on it, it's funny and it's entertaining."

Assisted Suicide: The Musical is on at The Coopers Malthouse, 113 Sturt Street, Southbank, March 30 to April 9. For bookings phone 9685 5111 or see comedyfestival.com.au