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TX:Ìý 03.03.20Ìý 2040-2100

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PRESENTER:Ìý ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý PETER WHITE

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PRODUCER:Ìý ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý LOUISE CLARKE-ROWBOTHAM

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White

Good evening.Ìý Tonight, the blind stand-up artist who doesn’t believe in leaving his audience wondering.

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Clip

Good evening.Ìý I am a blind comedian.Ìý Brace yourself for dark humour.Ìý [laughter]

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White

So, just how high can comedian David Eagle fly?Ìý And the Radio 4 series just made for the listeners of this programme.

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Clip

We want to know what you think of the place of touch in society today.Ìý Do you hug your friends or are we in the midst of a crisis of touch, isolated by technology and afraid of getting things wrong?

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White

So, the programme that often follows this one on air – All in the Mind – has made something of a feature of major surveys which dig into our psyches and take a snapshot of Britain’s behaviour and state of mind.Ìý The latest one looks at our relationship with touch and presenter, Claudia Hammond, has been telling me more about its aims and why they welcome blind listeners’ contributions.

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Hammond

So, the touch test follows up on two big studies like this we’ve done before.Ìý We did one on loneliness and we did one on rest.Ìý And we just thought this feels like a very good time to look at the topic of touch, it’s something we’ve heard about a lot in the wake of Me Too and people talking about inappropriate touch but also that with new technology is it the case that some people are becoming perhaps more isolated by touch.Ìý We wanted to do something really big with the help of the listeners to find out what’s happening now.

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White

So, there is that one sense that perhaps people are touched too much and inappropriately but perhaps that counter to that the idea that some people are not being touched enough?

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Hammond

That’s right.Ìý And so, we ask people all sorts of questions about do they feel a lack of touch in their lives or do they feel too much touch in their lives.Ìý What sorts of touch do they think is appropriate in different situations?Ìý Would they hug people goodbye, shake their hands, what is it that they want to do?Ìý And then we’ll be able to look and see – do attitudes towards touch vary according to perhaps how old people are or by gender or by how attached they feel to other people.Ìý And we’re going to look as well at how touch relates to health and to wellbeing and whether people are happy about being touched by specific professionals as well.Ìý So, sometimes people say that they think they don’t get physically examined, say, so much at the doctors these days.Ìý Is that the case?Ìý Is it that people would like that to happen more or less?

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White

And just explain what steps you’ve taken this time to make it possible for visually impaired people to fill in the test independently because it is quite intimate in places isn’t it?

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Hammond

It is and so we didn’t want to have a situation where somebody else reads out, say, questions to you, we wanted people to be able to fill it in all on their own because it is all anonymous and confidential and we want people to be able to be as honest as possible.Ìý What we did last time was to develop a version that works using a screen reader but that was after people had requested that.Ìý So, this time we thought we will learn from that and we will do it all in advance and test it in advance, get people to test it to check that it works.

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White

Well let’s see how successful you’ve been because someone who has filled it in, using a screen reader, and I think testing it out is student Olivia Wilson, who joins us from Worcester.Ìý So, first of all, Olivia, how did you find the form – the test – to fill in?

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Wilson

Really accessible, like every question is really easy to tell what question it is and what the answers are.

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White

Any suggestions as to how it could be improved, how it might be done differently?

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Wilson

The actual test is really accessible.Ìý The results – like accessing the results was a bit trickier, like I think there was a graph, which I couldn’t read.

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Hammond

Yes, so what we’ve done is we changed that after feedback from Olivia, before the proper launch, we changed that, so, that people don’t get a graph that they can’t see now.

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White

So, what about the content Olivia, I mean what is your attitude to touching and being touched?

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Wilson

I like friendly touch, so like being touched by friends.Ìý I don’t think as a society that we touch enough or that touch is seen as something helpful.Ìý For example, I also have a stammer and being touched by my friends helps – helps with that, like reduces it.

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White

Of course for visually impaired people there is bound to be quite a lot of touching and this is the bit that I found hardest to fill in, the fact that we get touched by strangers because usually they’re trying to help but the problem is, of course, when you’re asked a question about being touched by strangers so much depends on the attitude of the stranger and the way the touch is delivered.

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Wilson

Yeah definitely because it’s all contextual and sometimes I’ll be walking somewhere and I’ll ask someone if I can hold their arm, but before I’ve managed to ask them, they’ve already taken mine.

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White

Did filling in the form give you any surprises about yourself, about your attitudes to touch when you were asked the question kind of straight out?

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Wilson

I didn’t realise how much I liked being touched by someone that I know, that was quite surprising.

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White

Let me finally go back to Claudia.Ìý What’s going to happen to all this material, what’s it going to be used for?

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Hammond

So, the study will be open for another few weeks and then after that, over the next few months, the psychologists from Goldsmiths will be analysing it and we will be announcing the results on Radio 4 in the autumn and having a big series on touch on all sorts of these different aspects of touch.Ìý And then what the researchers are hoping is that maybe from these results they can try to work out what interventions might work, what things might help, perhaps in all circumstances, to ask permission before they touch people.Ìý And so, we’ll be finding out have attitudes changed and if so how and what’s the next step from that for society.

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White

Claudia Hammond and we also heard Olivia Wilson.

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You can find a link to on our website.

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And while we’re on the subject of accessible technology, a listener has contacted us with largely favourable comments about the apps of the online taxi service Uber as being a really helpful way for blind people to be able to summon a cab when out on the street but regretting that the app of one of its rivals – Bolt – which only operates in the UK and London at the moment – doesn’t appear to have labelled fields and buttons so that it can be used by a blind person using a screen reader.Ìý Well we’ve got in touch with Bolt ourselves and they’ve held up their hands and said they will now try to correct this gap in their service.Ìý Well we’ll keep across what progress they make but we wondered what other advice there was for people who hear of an app everyone else is raving about, only to discover it can’t be used by blind people.Ìý

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I spoke to assistive technology expert Dave Williams and I asked him whether other than by contacting In Touch what advice he’d give to frustrated visually impaired app users.

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Williams

Firstly to say, it’s not just you, lots of blind and partially sighted people are using these apps, so, you should certainly contact other blind and partially sighted people to find out is this app generally inaccessible or is it a problem on your device, is it a problem with a specific version.Ìý These things are a moving target, so, it’s important to check.Ìý You can also look online, there are many organisations that post app reviews and so on to find out if anybody else is experiencing the problem.Ìý If the app is on the Apple platform, for example, you can go to applevis.com and that’s where lots of blind and partially sighted people post reviews of apps from an accessibility perspective.Ìý And then, of course, you can contact the app developer and often app developers are soliciting reviews, they want you to post comments on the App Store, so, if you write on there this app is not accessible with the screen reader and explain the steps that you took to try and make it fail and what happened and what you expected to happen, app developers quite often do take those comments very seriously.

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White

So, you do think the consumer has got some power in this situation?

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Williams

I think we’ve got more power than we realise sometimes because if an app has received a very small number of reviews and you post yours and you tell the app developer that actually something isn’t quite right and that it’s really important that they address it, then your voice is not only being heard by the app developer but also seen by other people who are reading the comments and reviews.Ìý So, make some noise, talk to other blind and partially sighted people and also, I think, make sure that you’re not just missing something.Ìý Sometimes I hear about something that’s inaccessible and actually it turns out that it might be that you just press a key or you perform a certain gesture and all becomes clear.Ìý So, a couple of things people could try there.

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White

But in this case Bolt have acknowledged that they’ve not really done it.Ìý What would you say to companies who say they want to be accessible but aren’t sure how to go about it?Ìý I mean how difficult is it to make your app accessible for visually impaired people?

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Williams

Well the most important thing is to ensure that all your controls are labelled in a meaningful way.Ìý So, if you’ve got buttons within the app, if you can put a label on there that’s discoverable then that helps a lot.Ìý There are guidelines – lots of organisations publishing guidelines for accessible app design.Ìý And if you think about this stuff the sooner the better actually, it’s much harder to retrofit accessibility later on.Ìý And if you make your app easier to use for blind and partially sighted people the chances are it will be easier for everybody.

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White

And what responsibility does the law put on developers?

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Williams

Well, it’s my understanding that if you are providing a product or a service to the public then you are required to make reasonable adjustments.Ìý And it’s not just the legal argument, there’s a business case there as well that actually you potentially attract more customers and it's just the right thing to do.

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White

Dave Williams.

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Now, blind stand-up artist David Eagle has just been named best newcomer by the influential Chortle awards.Ìý It’s only the latest recognition of a rising star.Ìý If you know your folk music you might recognise Dave as a member of the folk band the Young’uns and they’ve also won a lot of awards.Ìý So, what’s been David’s route from folk to stand-up?

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Eagle

Well, it’s a similar story really I suppose to people like Billy Connolly, who started out in a folk band and then the talking got more and more to the detriment of their bandmates who were kind of thinking well are we ever going to get a song here, sort of just stood there poised with their instruments getting sore shoulders just thinking will you hurry up and finish.Ìý And so, for the good of them, really, I thought well I’d better branch out into stand-up and try and sort of deal with those demons, sort of thing, that side of that.Ìý And also, people in the audience at gigs would say oh, you know, you should try doing stand-up because I would be telling stories on stage.Ìý So, I did, I took the leap of faith and went solo.Ìý And it’s quite daunting because it means that if something is going really well and you’re on stage with the band it means you can ride on that wave of brilliance and go one, two, three, four and start the next song and dine out on that great joke for the next three and a half minutes.Ìý But – and if it doesn’t go very well you can go one, two, three, four and get out of it.Ìý Well, try doing that when you’re just on stage by yourself and everyone goes why is he suddenly counting.

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White

So, as a blind stand-up, how do you judge the mood of an audience when you go out on stage or when the curtain comes up or whatever?

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Eagle

Well, I suppose it’s quite equalitarian in that because a lot of comedians actually say – who can see – say well you can’t really see the audience that much, I might be able to see the front row of the audience.Ìý So, we’re all going on that very visceral response of the laughter.Ìý So, once you’re tuned into that and, you know, I often get asked in the street by people or when I’m on a bus or whatever – do you have superpowers, is your hearing heightened?Ìý And I’m sure you get that as well.Ìý And I don’t think the answer to that really is yes, I think you learn to tap into that sense more.Ìý And so, I think actually, in some ways, that may be is an advantage because I’m sort of listening to the audience and that’s my barometer.

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White

Now that clip we played it hits your blindness head on, I just wonder how much do you use your blindness as a prop?

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Eagle

Well this is it, an interesting thing Peter, that when I started doing comedy the one thing that I didn’t want to talk about was blindness, I thought it’s a bit of an obvious thing, people will see that I’m blind when I get on stage and they’ll think he’s going to talk about it, I don’t want to do it, it was too obvious.Ìý But then the first thing that I did I had all these ideas of other things that I might want to talk about and then the first thing that happened, at my very first stand-up gig, is I walked on to the stage, crashed into the microphone stand, sent it flying, the microphone cable got caught around my ankles and I was lying on my back and I thought in that moment, as I was trying to get up on to the stage, I thought I’m going to have to talk about the blindness now, aren’t I?Ìý So, what happened was I ended up addressing that subject and then jokes came from that, then I thought, oh that’s going down really well.Ìý So, I kind of added that into my set and so, inadvertently I’ve started talking about blindness a lot more.Ìý But I think, in some ways, why not, you know, it’s who I am it’s a part of me and it’s not all I talk about but it’s an important subject and I think once you address, as well, people go – oh it’s a safe subject to talk about – and I think it’s cathartic for me and for them.

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White

But I mean some people are quite uncomfortable with that approach – making jokes about your blindness – the self-deprecating joke, if you like, people argue it’s apologetic.

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Eagle

I think it’s empowering.Ìý I think if you feel that you have to do it, I think if you feel like you’re typecast, then, yes, I think it is – it can be apologetic.Ìý But I don’t feel, that’s not all I talk about, I often start now by talking about the blindness because I’ve learnt from experience if I don’t talk about it I can hear people in the audience muttering to themselves, wondering whether I am blind or not and that puts me off because obviously with my super hearing ability that I apparently have I can hear all of that.Ìý And also, I know from experience that people Google it, if I don’t talk about the blindness, I’ll get home and I’ll have a notification from Google saying that 10 people have Googled David Eagle blind or David Eagle disability or my personal favourite – what’s wrong with David Eagle.Ìý So, I might as well address it and then I can get away with it.Ìý But I think there’s so many interesting avenues to explore and it’s a different thing that other comedians don’t have and so why not talk about it.Ìý And also, if that can empower other people, if it can remove the barriers as well.Ìý I think people see a blind person and they go – Oh, maybe I shouldn’t say that, maybe I shouldn’t do that joke, maybe I shouldn’t talk to them about that.Ìý And if you can just show people – and this is the brilliant thing about the amount of disabled comedians who are now mainstream, on the TV or on the radio, it normalising it and it stops it becoming a taboo subject and I think that’s brilliant and important.Ìý Actually, I’ve just listened to – because obviously you tried some stand-up which…

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White

Ah, I was wondering whether I dared mention that but it’s very kind of you to mention it for me.

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Eagle

I feel – I feel I have to mention it because I’ve had a rather harrowing experience.Ìý I had only heard that – this is the first time I’ve heard it and it was 15 minutes ago and I remembered that you did it for Comic Relief and I nearly had a heart attack because you opened with a routine about writing braille on your hand – you say a lot of comedians write their jokes on their hand so they remember them, well I can’t do that because I read braille.Ìý You do – have a whole routine about that.Ìý And the problem is I haven’t heard that…

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White

I think I said something about the trouble was I nearly bled to death or something like that.

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Eagle

Yeah, now I haven’t heard that routine before but I have – I do exactly the same thing.Ìý And so, I’ve just – I suddenly thought – my goodness, he’s going to think if he’s heard me on You Tube he’s going to think I’m ripping him off and I’ve never heard the routine.Ìý And it’s just obviously there’s something about it.Ìý I suddenly thought am I being interviewed for In Touch or am I being investigated for You and Yours, you know.

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White

Do you ever worry that when you’re getting a laugh on stage, you’re getting a sympathy vote from the audience rather than a laugh?

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Eagle

I’ve been at open mic nights and other nights where other blind comedians have come on, where, unfortunately, I’ve seen them doing very bad – their jokes have been kind of like – ooh I didn’t see that one coming or you didn’t see what I did there.Ìý So, I’ve seen it not work, I’ve seen it where you can engender sympathy, I think for 20, 30 seconds and then you can tell when the laughter was awkward, you can tell when it isn’t working.Ìý And I must say I really enjoyed your stand-up thing, once I’d recovered from the shock of having accidentally ripped you off.

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White

Do you have a major influence on you – a comedic influence?

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Eagle

I’m influenced by all sorts of different types of comedy, so there isn’t really an influence.Ìý No, no I don’t, I’m trying to think, there’s so many, I absolutely love comedy from kind of the bottom rung upwards really, you can learn so much from listening to other people.Ìý And so, yeah, I absolutely love – I love the sort of surreal aspect that you can go to, I love the – being able to observe something that everyone should have thought of but nobody else has thought of and you’re the first person to do that and everybody suddenly goes – why didn’t I think it, it’s so obvious but it’s so clever.Ìý I love all the facets of comedy; I just think it’s wonderful.

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White

Just one final thing, we’re always looking for trends on this programme, in terms of visual impairment, you know you suddenly see things, I just wondered if you’re doing that in comedy, is there anything, at the moment, you think this is really the trendy thing, this is what is happening now?

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Eagle

Well I think what’s fascinating for people – and this is why I now don’t avoid talking about blindness – because I think people are interested in how does he do x, y and z, how do they do things.Ìý So, you talk about the different technologies that are there – how do they – you know talk about audio description, talks about all these things that people aren’t aware of and then – because it’s the questions that people ask – well how do you get around, how do you watch TV, am I even allowed to say I watch TV.Ìý You start addressing these subjects.Ìý It can also be – it can be really funny, hopefully but it also can be informative.Ìý Obviously, my primary objective is to make people laugh but if I can do some sort of social duty in the interim period then so be it.Ìý So, I think that’s it really, it’s kind of like – I think actually talking about blindness is a just to educate people as well as to hopefully make them laugh.

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White

David Eagle.Ìý

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And if you happen to be in Glasgow on 15th of this month, that’s Sunday week, David Eagle’s on at the Glasgow Comedy Festival.Ìý

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We welcome your comments, of course, you can leave your voice messages on 0161 8361338.Ìý You can email intouch@bbc.co.uk or go to our website where you can download tonight’s and previous editions of the programme.

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That’s it, from me Peter White, producer Louise Clarke-Rowbotham and the team, goodbye.

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