Making The Arts Accessible

Tim Yates leads the Research and Innovation Programme at Drake Music, an organisation dedicated to helping musicians with disabilities discover or co-design instruments that work for them. Collaborating with tech companies, coders, and instrument makers, they are pushing the boundaries where music and technology meet. When we spoke in May, Tim explained how Drake Music is working to develop a kind of one-stop hub—a database and showcase space—for the many inventions and creative ideas emergin...

This is a detailed and comprehensive chat about the technology used in theatres for assistive listening and audio description. James has a huge amount of knowledge and experience in this area, and we look at all the different options out there - loop systems, infrared, radio, WiFi, and Bluetooth including Auracast - and discuss the pros and cons of each one. Links: James Bottrill - email orchard.audio.services@gmail.com Ampetronic https://www.ampetronic.com/ Listen...

Paul Adams is currently Access Project Manager for The Royal Ballet and Opera in London and has been there just over a year. Before that he worked in Singapore, and has spent his career in creative learning departments working hard to make the arts accessible. We have a chat about what it’s like working for such a large organisation, tips and hints he has for effecting change, and things he thinks have worked well, and others which have been more of a learning curve. I hope ...

In this episode, recorded at Tom and Caroline's house, we have a great discussion about audio description. Tom is a general all-round arts-lover and has been blind all his life so has used audio description for many years now, particularly for theatre, opera and for historic buildings. And Caroline, his wife, has supported him in this, and was on the board of Vocaleyes for five years. So they are both full of lots of thoughts on what works, what doesn't and how people can ma...

Ben Wilson is an actor, theatre-maker, audio description consultant and recently became Extant's first trainee Artistic Director. We talk about how he combines these different roles, what it's like having a portfolio career like so many of us in the arts, on his requirements as a blind actor, on questions like why do West End shows have different access providers every week in each different venue, and should arts organisations and directors who have never cast a disabled actor on...

In this episode, I'm talking to Emily Malen who is Front of House and Access Development Manager at Theatre Royal Nottingham and Royal Concert Hall. What she stresses is the importance of listening and learning from your audiences, and always pushing forward, looking at the latest technology, training your staff, communicating with every department in the building, and also your visiting audience, and visiting show. Links Royal Theatre Nottingham and Royal Concert Hall https://t...

I talk to Jonathan Suffolk, Director of Production at The Curve, Leicester who headed up the team at The National Theatre who developed their smart caption glasses. These augmented reality glasses provide captions for people who are D/deaf or hard of hearing, without them having to turn and read captions on a screen at the side or over the top of a stage. We get quite techy and hear how it all works in detail. And he talks very honestly about how access works in a major thea...

In this episode, I talk to Hannah Thompson, Professor of French and Critical Disability studies at Royal Holloway, University of London, who describes herself as partially blind and is an expert in audio description. She recently co-created a FutureLearn course on audio description called ‘Creating Audio Description: Equality, Diversity and Inclusion’, which explores how to design and create audio descriptions and audio introductions for TV, film and theatre, and she's full of fascinating ins...

In this conversation, I hear from actor Dan Parr about how he first got into audio describing whilst performing in Road at Leeds Playhouse, and how he and three other actors from that show have gone on to create their own company, Hear The Picture, where they create audio description in character, based in Sheffield. Links https://twitter.com/hearthepicture?lang=en Hear The Picture – an actor led audio description company where they describe in character https://www.sheffieldtheatres...

I talk to Jonathan Penny about audio description for TV. He worked at ITV and is now at Channel 4 heading up their access services. And we also cover a bit about live subtitles, and how TV companies are starting to look at creating audio introductions to help blind and partially sighted viewers have more information about a show before watching it as there is only so much you can describe within the show. Links ITV's accessibility inbox - accessibility@itv.com - for comme...

In this episode, I talk to Vicky about her work as an audio describer, and an access champion, what she thinks of relaxed performances, and her work with Mind The Gap which champions access to creative careers for disabled artists. And there's a good story about a pie. Links Jack Thorne, McTaggart Lecture https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxUZPMBRIPU Vicky’s Disability and Equality Training Company https://totallyinclusivepeople.com/ Vocaleyes – the UK’s audio description organisa...

I chat to Philippa about her work with Talking Birds theatre company in Coventry and especially the invention of a mobile captioning system - The Difference Engine. With this system, people can get captions on their phones which is particularly useful for smaller arts organisations (it's very reasonable!), and for events held in unusual spaces. Philippa also talks about how they created a Citizens Assembly during the Coventry City of Culture which means local people now have a say...

My conversation with Paul who is a BSL interpreter, covered how he prepares to sign an opera, what more theatres can do to welcome D/deaf audiences, and a look back at some of the wonderful shows he has signed over the years. Paul's website: http://www.paulwhittaker.org.uk/ Opera North upcoming signed performances https://www.operanorth.co.uk/access/signed-performances/ Thanks for listening! You can see all episodes on my website www.alicegilmour.com.

In this trailer, I discuss why I made the podcast and what it's all about. Thanks for listening! You can see all episodes on my website www.alicegilmour.com.