Making The Arts Accessible

Oct 21 2024 12 ep. 34 mins 9

Making The Arts Accessible Podcast artwork

Alice Gilmour interviews people who make the arts accessible, including audio describers, BSL interpreters, technology experts, disability experts, theatre managers, community outreach workers, and more.

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11 - Paul Adams

Oct 21 2024 34 mins

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, an

10 - Tom and Caroline Maley

Dec 19 2023 45 mins

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 yea

09 - Ben Wilson

Jul 14 2023 48 mins

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

08 - Emily Malen

Apr 11 2023 37 mins

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 vi

07 - Jonathan Suffolk

Jan 25 2023 34 mins

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 hea

06 - Hannah Thompson

Dec 20 2022 44 mins

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 des

05 - Dan Parr

Nov 08 2022 33 mins

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.Linkshttps://twitter.com/hearthepicture?lang=enHear The Picture �

04 - Jonathan Penny

Sep 03 2022 36 mins

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 d

03 - Paul Whittaker

Jun 29 2022 30 mins

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 performanceshttps://www.operanorth.co.uk/access/signed-performances/Thanks for liste

02 - Philippa Cross

Jun 29 2022 45 mins

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 cr