It is now the year 2022 and I find myself in bed, contemplating what to do. At the moment, I do not have the motivation to start going to the gym yet and my vegan diet had failed as soon as I ordered that tuna Subway as part of my hangover cure after the new year eve party. Sidenote: We hosted the party at our house- big mistake. There were shattered wine glasses and someone left a bag filled to the brim with limes, supposedly for a caipirinha recipe. You know the saying, when life gives you limes, make limeonade- no wait, that doesn't work.
Anyway, it is about time I should create a blog- It might do some good or it might be a failure. Why? I watch films constantly. I go to the theatre constantly. I complain constantly. I am deaf, almost 30 and throughout the years, there always have been an access issue. Let me briefly list them but I will elaborate on this on another blog post.
As many deaf people are very much aware:
Closed captioning in cinemas and theatres are too, too limited. They may occur once a week in a cinema for a particular film. In the theatre, however, plays will likely broadcast subtitles only once in their limited run time. Yes, let's say there are 180 performances of a play/show in three months- only one will be listed as captioned. Only one will be listed as audio descriptive. Only one will be listed as a relaxed performance. What about the access requirements for the rest of the 177 performances? Why nothing is being done about it?
The times and dates can be ridiculous, especially in a cinema. Most well known cinemas, generally the big chains, are afraid that hosting an access performance at peak time will guarantee a loss of profit. This is why there are rarely captioned films on a Friday or Saturday night. They usually come up at an off peak time on a Tuesday, Thursday or Sunday. If you want to go for a film on a Saturday, then the only choice will be a random kid film, about a giant, cuddly red dog, which starts at 9.30am- basically the equivalent of getting your brain drilled slowly by an eco-friendly straw.
There can be errors- theatres are generally fine with their subtitling platform and only once there has been an error. (It was a Pinter play and the captions stopped when there was 20 mins to go. We was offered an alternative date to see the play all over again- no thanks.) However, in cinemas, there always has been an issue where the subtitles do not show up at all. There are so many scenarios when this happened and the cinema refused to stop the film and restart this again, correctly with subtitles, as stated on their sites. I will explain how we can overcome this on a future post.
Where is the access? Yes, there are some excellent sites that do keep you all updated, such as YourlocalCinema, Stagetext and some theatres do have their own access pages. I wouldn't dream of taking all this away from them and they work hard to ensure everyone can access to these performances and shows. However, it is still quite common for other sites, not to update their own access pages and it is quite frustrating when there is a performance you would like to see but you just missed out on the access because it was not posted on site, on time or it was too late. I am hoping to create this blog to continuously update you on the latest shows in London and do a bit of research. On this platform, I would also like to introduce BSL Talks, Opera and festivals as well so you can find everything set out in one setting.
At the moment, this is very early stage and I am currently working on my own. I am using a free website designer and will likely update the site, every two weeks. I am not too sure what to do, but I will try and do my best. Maybe the site will expand somehow very soon and if there are any questions, I will be more than happy to help.
I will post blogs on access information, who to contact and ways how we can help to improve the service in ensuring there are access for all.
I will also update theatre performances, shows, festivals, talks, every two weeks too and the majority of it will be in London. However, if there are any additions you have spotted that I have not, please do feel free to contact me and I will add this to my list of updated performances.
I will also see if I can add a forum, an open discussion for anyone to talk. It doesn't have to be about access, but casual chats about the films you have seen, theatre recommendations and meet ups for an event, like a festival for example. It would also be terrific if someone would like to post reviews on what they seen and share it amongst others. I may not have the same ability as a critic but I will post some reviews too, when I have time and would warmly open this suggestion to others who may be interested.
Like I said early stages but a start is a start. Thank you for reading and I look forward to seeing how we can achieve this, together.
David
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