Making The Arts Accessible

14 - David Bellwood

Mon, 23 Mar 2026 11:00:00 +0000

David Bellwood, who is head of access at the National Theatre, and before that The Globe, discusses the importance of 'predictable adaptability' - how organisations must become reliably able to change and adapt to customers requirements - the value of a figurehead for access, and tells me about exciting projects such as using a young visually impaired actor to audio describe a family show, training lighting designers in photosensitivity, and much more!

Links

The National Theatre – the UK’s national theatre

https://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/home/

Frozen Light Theatre – multi-sensory theatre company for people with PMLD

https://www.frozenlighttheatre.com/

Reid My Mind – great podcast all about audio description

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/flipping-the-script-on-audio-description-the-youngest/id1109751505?i=1000666837438\

Tourettes Hero - a place to celebrate the humour & creativity of Tourettes.

https://www.touretteshero.com/safe/

Flash Cue Project – educating lighting designers on photosensitivity

https://flashcues.com/

Ramps on the Moon – challenging ableism, elevating disabled people on and off stage and reshaping the mainstream cultural sector

https://rampsonthemoon.co.uk/

Thanks for listening! You can see all episodes on my website www.alicegilmour.com.

13 - Tim Yates

Thu, 18 Sep 2025 17:00:00 +0100

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 emerging in this field. The aim is to share these innovations more widely and make them accessible to all.

Links:

Drake Music

https://www.drakemusic.org/

Tim Yates (page on DrakeMusic website)

https://www.drakemusic.org/team/11116/

Paraorchestra

https://paraorchestra.com/

The Kellycaster

https://www.drakemusic.org/technology/instruments-projects/the-kellycaster/

MiMU Gloves

https://mimugloves.com/gloves/

Sony - Inclusive Design

https://www.sony.com/en/SonyInfo/accessibility/initiatives/

OrchLab at the London Philharmonic Orchestra

https://lpo.org.uk/project/orchlab/

Thanks for listening! You can see all episodes on my website www.alicegilmour.com.

12 - James Bottrill

Fri, 18 Jul 2025 07:00:00 +0100

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 Technologies

https://www.listentech.com/

Sennheiser

https://www.sennheiser.com/

Williams

https://williamsav.com/

Thanks for listening! You can see all episodes on my website www.alicegilmour.com.

11 - Paul Adams

Mon, 21 Oct 2024 09:00:00 +0100

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 you enjoy it.

Links

Royal Ballet and Opera

https://www.rbo.org.uk/

Paul’s page on LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-anthony-adams-a-world-with-access-to-arts-experiences-for-all-8288a821/

Ramps on the Moon Project

https://rampsonthemoon.co.uk/

ATG Theatres – access page

https://www.atgtickets.com/access/

Devon Healey

https://discover.research.utoronto.ca/32146-devon-healey

Paul Hamlyn Christmas Treat

https://www.rbo.org.uk/learning/families/paul-hamlyn-christmas-treat

The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party – ZooNation

https://www.rbo.org.uk/tickets-and-events/the-mad-hatters-tea-party-details

Singapore Theatre’s Inclusive Young Company

https://www.srt.com.sg/young-company-past-productions

Thanks for listening! You can see all episodes on my website www.alicegilmour.com.

10 - Tom and Caroline Maley

Tue, 19 Dec 2023 12:00:00 +0000

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 make their work or their space accessible to blind people.

Thanks for listening! You can see all episodes on my website www.alicegilmour.com.

09 - Ben Wilson

Fri, 14 Jul 2023 08:00:00 +0100

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 their stage still be given a platform. Enjoy!

Links

Extant Theatre

https://extant.org.uk/

Graeae Theatre

https://graeae.org/

Ramps on the Moon Project

https://rampsonthemoon.co.uk/

Sheffield Theatres

www.sheffieldtheatres.co.uk

Oliver Twist – NT At Home

https://www.ntathome.com/products/oliver-twist

Georgie Morrell – comedian, actor, writer

http://georgiemorrell.co.uk/

Thanks for listening! You can see all episodes on my website www.alicegilmour.com.

08 - Emily Malen

Tue, 11 Apr 2023 16:00:00 +0100

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://trch.co.uk/whats-on/

Attitude is Everything

https://attitudeiseverything.org.uk/

Vocaleyes – audio description listings and information

https://vocaleyes.co.uk/

StageText – captions in theatre

https://www.stagetext.org/

TheatreSign – BSL interpreters and performances

https://theatresign.com/

Signed Culture – supporting BSL access to the arts

https://www.signedculture.org.uk/

Thanks for listening! You can see all episodes on my website www.alicegilmour.com.

07 - Jonathan Suffolk

Wed, 25 Jan 2023 10:00:00 +0000

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 theatre and how it rubs up against the eternal economic difficulties in the arts.

Links:

The National Theatre Caption Glasses

https://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/your-visit/access/caption-glasses

The National Theatre, London, UK

https://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/

Leicester Curve Theatre

https://www.curveonline.co.uk/

Stagetext – providing captions for theatres

https://www.stagetext.org/

Galapro – providing captions and audio descriptions to phones

https://playbill.com/article/the-new-technology-about-to-revolutionize-broadway

The Arts Council’s ‘Let’s Create’ strategy

https://www.artscouncil.org.uk/lets-create

Thanks for listening! You can see all episodes on my website www.alicegilmour.com.

06 - Hannah Thompson

Tue, 20 Dec 2022 12:00:00 +0000

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 insights on how audio description can become part of the creative process which ultimately makes a better artistic product, whilst improving the audio description experience for the user.

Links:

Hannah Thompson

http://hannah-thompson.blogspot.com/

Future Learn course - Creating Audio Description: Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/creating-audio-description-for-equality-diversity-and-inclusion

The Smartify app (sign up and search for The Royal Holloway Art Gallery)

https://smartify.org/

Play Flightpaths by Extant

https://extant.org.uk/productions/digital-flight-paths/

Watch here

https://flightpaths.extant.org.uk/

Vocaleyes website

https://vocaleyes.co.uk/

Thanks for listening! You can see all episodes on my website www.alicegilmour.com.

05 - Dan Parr

Tue, 08 Nov 2022 11:00:00 +0000

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.co.uk/

A theatre complex in Sheffield, comprising the Crucible, the Lyceum and the Tanya Moiseiwitsch Playhouse. These theatres make up the largest regional theatre complex outside the London region and show a variety of in-house and touring productions.

https://leedsplayhouse.org.uk/

One of the largest producing theatres in the north, and awarded the UK's Most Welcoming Theatre at the UK Theatre Awards 2022.

https://www.rampsonthemoon.co.uk/

A collaborative project between six different UK theatres aiming to enrich the stories we tell and the way we tell them by normalising the presence of D/deaf and disabled people both on and off stage.

https://graeae.org/

World class theatre and training from D/deaf and disabled artists

https://cripticarts.org/

They produce work with deaf and disabled artists, support deaf and disabled people in the arts, and support other organisations with training

Thanks for listening! You can see all episodes on my website www.alicegilmour.com.

04 - Jonathan Penny

Sat, 03 Sep 2022 12:00:00 +0100

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 comments/complaints/to find out more about the users' forum

ITV's accessibility statement - https://www.itv.com/terms/articles/accessibility

VocalEyes – www.vocaleyes.co.uk

FutureLearn course - https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/creating-audio-description-for-equality-diversity-and-inclusion

Trigger Point character introductions - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oJazqxGxSA

Scottish Opera Audio Described performances - https://www.scottishopera.org.uk/discover-opera/accessible-performances/

Thanks for listening! You can see all episodes on my website www.alicegilmour.com.

03 - Paul Whittaker

Wed, 29 Jun 2022 16:00:00 +0100

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.

02 - Philippa Cross

Wed, 29 Jun 2022 16:00:00 +0100

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 in the artistic and creative vision for the city.

Links
Talking Birds Theatre Company
https://talkingbirds.co.uk

The Difference Engine
https://talkingbirds.co.uk/de

Shoot Festival, Access Coventry, and Artists’ Manifesto
https://www.coventryshootfestival.com/access-coventry

Thanks for listening! You can see all episodes on my website www.alicegilmour.com.

01 - Vicky Ackroyd

Wed, 29 Jun 2022 16:00:00 +0100

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 organisation
https://vocaleyes.co.uk/

Mind The Gap, England's leading learning disability performance and live arts company.
https://www.mind-the-gap.org.uk/

Thanks for listening! You can see all episodes on my website www.alicegilmour.com.

00 - Trailer

Wed, 29 Jun 2022 16:00:00 +0100

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.