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´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio 4 In Touch |
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Listen to this programmeFactsheet of this programmeTranscript of this programme Print this page FactsheetBEAUTIFUL PEOPLEIn Touch reviewed the latest attempt to portray blindness on the television. The subject is an ageing hippy, who may have slightly better sight than her guide dog. Beautiful People is broadcast on Thursdays on ´óÏó´«Ã½ Two at 21:30. THEATRE AUDIO DESCRIPTION Guests: Sue Arnold - Journalist and writer Linsey Cornwall-Jones - Researcher Vidar Hjardeng - Vocaleyes Chair The programme commemorated ten years of audio description in British Theatres. CONTACT VOCALEYES Tel: 020 7375 1043 Audio description company. GENERAL CONTACTS RNIB 105 Judd Street London WC1H 9NE Helpline: 0845 766 9999 (Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm) Tel: 0207 388 1266 (switchboard/overseas callers) Web: The RNIB provides information, support and advice for anyone with a serious sight problem. They not only provide Braille, Talking Books and computer training, but imaginative and practical solutions to everyday challenges. The RNIB campaigns to change society's attitudes, actions and assumptions, so that people with sight problems can enjoy the same rights, freedoms and responsibilities as fully sighted people. They also fund pioneering research into preventing and treating eye disease and promote eye health by running public health awareness campaigns. HENSHAWS SOCIETY FOR BLIND PEOPLE (HSBP) John Derby House 88-92 Talbot Road Old Trafford Manchester M16 0GS Tel: 0161 872 1234 Email: info@hsbp.co.uk Web: Henshaws provides a wide range of services for people who have sight difficulties. They aim to enable visually impaired people of all ages to maximise their independence and enjoy a high quality of life. They have centres in: Harrogate, Knaresborough, Liverpool, Llandudno, Manchester, Newcastle upon Tyne, Salford, Southport and Trafford. THE GUIDE DOGS FOR THE BLIND ASSOCIATION (GDBA) Burghfield Common Reading RG7 3YG Tel: 0118 983 5555 Email: guidedogs@guidedogs.org.uk Web: The GDBA’s mission is to provide guide dogs, mobility and other rehabilitation services that meet the needs of blind and partially sighted people. ACTION FOR BLIND PEOPLE 14-16 Verney Road London SE16 3DZ Tel: 0800 915 4666 (info & advice) Tel: 020 7635 4800 (central office) Web: Registered charity with national cover that provides practical support in the areas of housing, holidays, information, employment and training, cash grants and welfare rights for blind and partially-sighted people. Leaflets and booklets are available. NATIONAL LEAGUE OF THE BLIND AND DISABLED Central Office Swinton House 324 Grays Inn Road London WC1X 8DD Tel: 020 7837 6103 Textphone: 020 7837 6103 National League of the Blind and Disabled is a registered trade union and is involved in all issues regarding the employment of blind and disabled people in the UK. NATIONAL LIBRARY FOR THE BLIND (NLB) Far Cromwell Road Bredbury Stockport SK6 2SG Tel: 0161 406 2525 Textphone: 0161 355 2043 Email: enquiries@nlbuk.org Web: Trustees from the Royal National Institute of the Blind (RNIB) and the National Library for the Blind (NLB) have agreed to merge the library services of both charities as of 1 January 2007, creating the new RNIB National Library Service. EQUALITY AND HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION HELPLINE (England) Freepost RRLL-GHUX-CTRX Arndale House Arndale Centre Manchester M4 3EQ 0845 604 6610 - England main number 0845 604 6620 - England textphone 0845 604 6630 - England fax Mon, Tue, Thu, Fri 9:00 am-5:00 pm; Wed 9:00 am-8:00 pm (last call taken at 7:45pm) EQUALITY AND HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION HELPLINE (Wales) Freepost RRLR-UEYB-UYZL 3rd Floor 3 Callaghan Square Cardiff CF10 5BT 0845 604 8810 - Wales main number 0845 604 8820 - Wales textphone 0845 604 8830 - Wales fax Mon, Tue, Thu, Fri 9:00 am-5:00 pm; Wed 9:00 am-8:00 pm (last call taken at 7:45pm) EQUALITY AND HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION HELPLINE (Scotland) Freepost RRLL-GYLB-UJTA The Optima Building 58 Robertson Street Glasgow G2 8DU 0845 604 5510 - Scotland Main 0845 604 5520 - Scotland Textphone 0845 604 5530 - Scotland – Fax Mon, Tue, Thu, Fri 9:00 am-5:00 pm; Wed 9:00 am-8:00 pm (last call taken at 7:45pm) DISABLED LIVING FOUNDATION 380-384 Harrow Road London W9 2HU Tel: 0845 130 9177 Web: The Disabled Living Foundation provides information and advice on disability equipment. THRIVE The Geoffrey Udall Centre Beech Hill Reading RG7 2AT Tel: 0118 9885688 Email: info@thrive.org.uk Thrive is a national charity, founded in 1978, whose aim is to research, educate and promote the use and advantages of gardening for those with a disability. Thrive’s vision is that the benefits of gardening are known to, and can be accessed by, anyone with a disability. Thrive has been supporting blind gardeners for over 30 years, and established the Blind Gardeners’ Club with RNIB in 2006 to help gardeners share information and techniques. Membership of the club costs £9 a year. The ´óÏó´«Ã½ is not responsible for external websites General contacts Back to top TranscriptIN TOUCHTX: 14.10.08 2040-2100 PRESENTER: PETER WHITE PRODUCER: CHERYL GABRIEL White Good evening. Tonight: we look at the latest example of the portrayal of blindness on television - has it avoided the many pitfalls that lie in its way? And we celebrate 10 years of theatre audio-description in Britain. Clip My favourite thing was seeing how like the barricade and how tall it was. How big did it feel to you? Twice the size of dad. Really? Because your dad's quite big isn't he? Yeah. White More of that later in the programme. Now portrayal of blindness on our TV screens is a risky business at the best of times, especially when it comes to comedy. Overdo the mockery of the physical representation of blindness, and you're accused of cruelty and insensitivity; play it down, and you're accused of political correctness, and avoiding reality. So has the latest attempt managed to walk the tightrope? ´óÏó´«Ã½ television's Beautiful People, written by Jonathan Harvey, and featuring Meera Syall as a blind woman living with a distinctly odd family, is currently on our screens and journalist and writer Sue Arnold has been watching it for us. I asked her for her first impressions. Arnold I thought it was great. I thought it was wonderfully refreshing and different and Meera Syall plays this ageing hippy who's been - she's a kind of amphetamines lady - she dances and she dances with her guide dog... White She's almost a kind of Ab Fab figure in a way. Arnold Actually that's exactly what she is - she's feisty and wacky and different and she says extraordinary things and ... The great thing about it is she's not singled out as a blind person at all - when she's walking down the road with her guide dog nobody kind of mentions it, except to say that her guide dog has got pretty bad eyesight. White Well yeah, and let's be fair, there is a bit of a gag isn't there about her tending to go to the wrong places, let me just give you a quick example of that. Arnold Yeah. Clip How as your granola guru Hayles? Not so hot to start with. But like a lot of men not so bad once you got started? No I went in through the wrong door. I sat there for half an hour listening to some woman bleating on about her lopsided hysterectomy, that's when I realised I was in the hairdressers. Hayley do you not think it might be a good idea to get a new guide dog? Debbie, she is yin to my yang. You can see better than her. So I had a quick perm and I got there for the last five minutes of Gaylord, who it has to be said was umph inspirational. Has it changed your life Hayley? It has given me a life Andy. White So there we have Hayley, that's what her name is, going into the wrong place, so there was a bit of that gag that you always seem to get that we don't quite know what we're doing and neither do our dogs. Arnold Well I don't know what I'm doing half the time. But I think the way that she plays it is good because she's cool - that's what Auntie Hayley is - she's cool and goodness knows you don't often get cool blind people unless you're thinking of that ridiculous Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman, which actually made me want to throw up it was so dreadful and kind of over the top and this guy driving a Ferrari - it's nothing like that. White It's quite difficult to get to grips with in a way isn't it, it's not a nice - well not yet anyway - a neat plot that goes from A to Z, I'm still trying to figure out who's who? Arnold No, well right now she's distinctly cameo role but she seems to be getting bigger because I see the second and the third episode and quite a lot happens in there and she's coming out of her own, she's been in Greenham Common - she's demonstrated - she's obviously - you know did all the things that people did in the '70s and '80s. White She even has sex doesn't she? Arnold She - well she said they cut up her skirt to make Joseph's Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat and she says rather wistfully - I like that skirt, I lost my virginity in that skirt in the back of a Ford Cortina, at least he said it was a Ford Cortina. And then a bit later on she says well those were in the old days, nobody wants to bang a blind bitch anymore. And I thought to myself my goodness we've moved on from your Helen Keller, your pious Esther Costellos and that kind of image of blindness where people were good and quiet. White So the objections may come more from those who were offended by that kind of language than from people protesting about the portrayal of blindness? Arnold Possibly, no I think the way that she's been integrated into the family - I like the kind of vagueness of it, she's called Auntie Hayley, she's Indian, the rest of the family - there's an Irish chap, Debbie - Debbie's married to an Irishman - they're a wonderful family and they're all doing crazy mad things. And if Auntie Hayley didn't do crazy mad things she would actually be the odd one out, so she fits in beautifully to this wacky family. White You don't think it's rather self-consciously diverse - you have got almost everybody ... Arnold Well let's face it - this is Reading, this is not Reading as I know it. They're always going on about oh we're going off to the bright lights of Slough now because this is only Reading. But I mean if Reading's like that, heavens I'm going there, it's got everything happening - you know they've got wonderfully inventive kids and marvellous teachers and oh just everything's happening there but that of course is the series rather than ... White So is this going to be good for perceptions of visual impairment? Arnold Yes I think so because I think it's going to take away that slightly holier than thou thing that quite a lot of blind people have. The moment you put a pair of dark glasses on someone they turn into a sort of guruish figure, Auntie Hayley's not like that at all, she's - wears crazy clothes, she does crazy things, she says crazy things and she's just - everybody accepts her, nobody kind of says oh listen to Auntie Hayley again, she's just part of the whole mees en seine [phon.] and that's what I like, that's the way forward. White Well we'll have to see how it goes because as always with sitcoms, and that's probably not quite the right word for this, but they develop at their own pace don't they. Sue Arnold thank you very much. And we'd love to hear your reactions, you can see the next episode of Beautiful People on Thursday evening on ´óÏó´«Ã½2 at 9.30. Now, some more good news, well good news if you like beautiful people anyway. Remember June Bowden, who recently ran into all kinds of problems when trying to inform her bank, Nat West, that she'd moved and simply wanted to re-instate her normal banking arrangements. June's attempts to assure them that she was who she said she was over the phone were not accepted, she was required to go to her bank with photographic evidence of her identity, although this was very difficult for her, and although she regularly received Braille bank statements, all the correspondence about this came to her in print, and had to be handled by a series of sighted carers, thus compromising the very security for June which the bank said it was trying to protect. But, after an appearance on In Touch, all now seems to be sweetness and light, as June told me yesterday. Bowden I was visited by a gentleman from the Southfields branch of the bank last Monday and he said that there'd be no more problems, he was satisfied that I am who I said I was because he asked me about some dead direct debits I don't make anymore and various other questions - it was a bit like being on some quiz show. And in the end I satisfied him that I'm not some impostor. He then said he would ring me up again to confirm that I could be registered with this 24 hour banking service line. They've sent me a customer code number and various other twiddly fiddly bits to make sure it's me. White I mean the key thing that you wanted, apart from being part of the telephone system, was so that you could talk to a direct person at the bank on the phone, have you managed to get that? Bowden Yeah eventually. You still have to do a bit of one for a cup of tea, two for a cheese sandwich but not as much as before and if they tell you to wait and you don't press any numbers you can get through to an operator in the end - thank god. And I've got somebody's name who I can speak to now. White So as far as you're concerned the problem is solved? Bowden All's well that's ended well - thanks to you and thanks to this man's intervention in the end yes. I'm never going to move again I'll tell you. White A relieved June Bowden and who knows could this be an early example of the new face of banking? We'll see! Something which has now become a relatively old and familiar face is that of audio-description; the art of describing visual entertainment - television, film, theatre to visually impaired people, super-imposed over the pictures or the action. Well one company which has been involved almost from the beginning is VocalEyes; they audio-described their first event in 1998, and last weekend they were celebrating their 10th anniversary. To see how they did it, I'm joined by Linsey Cornwall Jones; and Linsey, you covered their very first event for us. Cornwall Jones Yeah I did Peter and it was 10 years ago this very week. White So how are they going about celebrating their anniversary then? Cornwall Jones Well they had a special audio-described performance of Les Miserables - Les Mis - the Glums Peter, as it's known in theatrical circles. White Okay, I wouldn't know that kind of thing. Cornwall Jones And then they laid on special touch tours and I joined those and talked to some of the VIPs and the audio-describers. Then I dashed up to the dress circle to meet the chair of VocalEyes - Vidar Hjardeng - to ask him how the last 10 years had gone. Hjardeng We began doing 16 audio-described shows in the first year and we now do roughly a hundred. We started with theatre - musicals, operas - circus even and some street performances and we've now also moved into the visual arts - heritage, ballet and indeed contemporary dance. So as you can see we've grown enormously in the past decade. Actuality of touch tour Cornwall Jones Before the performance visually-impaired guests were invited on to the stage for a special touch tour in which they were shown props and costumes by members of the cast. Actuality of touch tour Visually-impaired member of the audience I find this amazingly interesting for me. I saw the show probably 10-12 years ago, I could see a little better then, than I can now. And to see all these things that are happening that obviously I won't necessarily be able to see on stage but I'll hear about on the audio-description is fantastic. Cornwall Jones There's a hat there, have you felt that? Visually-impaired member of the audience No I haven't felt this one yet. It's got three sides - so this is a sort of - like a tricolour type hat is it? I don't know who wears this one. Cast member It's one of the guards - French soldiers were that. Visually-impaired member of the audience Seeing these things backstage it'll bring it into my head even though I can't see it. Cornwall Jones What are you feeling on the touch tour? Another visually-impaired member of the audience They've just told me it's a hat which one of the ladies wears, from the lovely ladies. It feels like lace on the outside and then I think - oh yes here we are there's ribbons and flowers. Visually-impaired member of the audience And feathers. Another visually-impaired member of the audience Oh - oh gosh yes it's like an ostrich feather I think, that's wonderful. Visually-impaired member of the audience Quite fancy trying it on. Another visually-impaired member of the audience Do you think I'd make a lovely lady? Clip Singing - Lovely Ladies Cornwall Jones You're Olivia Wilson aren't you? Wilson Yeah. Cornwall Jones Have you been on lots of audio described touch tours before? Wilson Yeah. Cornwall Jones Are you an old hand? Do you go and see lots of shows? Wilson Um yeah, quite a few. Cornwall Jones What was your favourite thing on the touch tour? Wilson My favourite thing was seeing how - like the barricade and how tall it was. Cornwall Jones How big did it feel to you ? Wilson Twice the size of dad. Cornwall Jones Really? Because your dad's quite big isn't he? Wilson Yeah. Cornwall Jones What are you looking forward to about the performance this afternoon? Wilson Well seeing it for the first time. Cornwall Jones For visually-impaired theatre goers audio-describers are key to enhancing the enjoyment of the show. Clare Le May and Anne Hornsby have been audio-describing Les Miserables for 10 and 15 years respectively. Before the curtain went up they told me how they prepared. Hornsby By watching it maybe about three times from the auditorium, taking a lot of notes about set costumes, what the characters actually do and then you put together a description script, so you have the cues from the actual script of the show and then you write in what you intend to say. And then you work on a video or DVD of the performance and then you do a rehearsal of it to make sure that what you say is going to fit into the gaps available. But then if you come back to do it maybe six months later you might have a different cast and so there will be things that are different, quite subtle changes often. With Thenardier, in this one, he actually spits into the mixture in the kitchen, the previous Thenardier used to pick his nose and then put the bogeys in the mixture. So it's those sort of little details that change and therefore you have to change and update your script with it. Cornwall Jones Clare, what is the funniest thing that has ever happened to you in your years audio describing Les Mis? Le May I think the funniest thing is when you've rehearsed a piece of action on stage very carefully and often we have to pre-empt that action, either because it's something that's going to get a laugh and we want our audience to be able to laugh along with everyone else or it might be the only space we've got in the dialogue to actually explain what's happening. So you just have to go for it and we have all sorts of embarrassing moments where you say with great confidence that someone gets up angrily and puts on his coat and then doesn't or it's often the sound cues isn't it - you say he smashes the chair and then there's a silence and then there's a smash and you think I was just a little bit too early there. Sometimes you'll say he kisses her and of course you can hear a kiss and they'll do it so quietly that your audience are thinking did he kiss her, didn't hear a lip smacking there. Cornwall Jones What's the worst thing that's ever happened to you in an audio-description? Hornby I think my worst thing was describing Jesus Christ Superstar the touring production and as I'm sure you know we give an introduction beforehand which describes the characters and their costumes and I described a very beautiful curvaceous black actress playing Mary Magdalene with tumbling black hair, large dark eyes and I checked with the company manager there were no understudies on but when it started for some reason that actress wasn't available and the understudy was on and she was skinny, she was white and she was flat chested. Audio-description The line of chain gang men - ragged, dirty, cowed - trudged forwards through a misty haze. The gauze screen rises on the men in the baking heat. The guards armed with muskets push the convicts into line, men are shoved to their knees, others stand behind breaking rocks, their every movement watched. [Singing] Cornwall Jones But what of the next 10 years? I asked VocalEyes chairman - Vidar Hjardeng - how confident he was about the future. Hjardeng My ambition is that maybe perhaps in 10 years times if you and I were to be talking, Linsey, we would have got to a point where everyone who's visually-impaired, every VIP, who loves the theatre, who goes to an artistic event will turn up at a venue, whether it's Glasgow, London, Canterbury, Newcastle, and will know what they're in for, will know what standard to expect, will know how an audio-description service should work. You go to the theatre for a good night out, a really fun experience and why shouldn't people who want audio-description ask for that A1 gold standardised service across the country. So that's what I hope we can all work towards in the next decade. Clip Singing White So the big theatrical finish to Linsey's report and we heard there from VocalEyes's chair Vidar Hjardeng. Lindesy, there was also going to be a world record attempt, tell me about that. Cornwall Jones Well after the curtain went down they did announce that the world record had been set for the largest number of visually-impaired attendances for an audio-described performance. And it was set at 168. White So I wonder if we're going to see lots of attempts to beat that. I suppose it's more impressive than the number of blind people you can get in a phone box. Linsey Cornwall Jones thank you very much indeed and here's to the next 10 years, see you then. And finally, the continuing attempts to persuade the government that visually-impaired people should be entitled to receive a higher rate of disability living allowance which would take into account the increased need to be able to use public transport and taxis if you're blind, something which could make a difference of around £30 a week. Well the case, put by the Royal National Institute of Blind People, has so far been rejected by the government. When the recent changes to work related benefits were introduced this was seen as an opportunity to make this change, it didn't get a mention. But undeterred tomorrow there's to be a lobby of parliament by blind and partially-sighted people, it'll follow the pattern of the lobby two years ago reckoned by the RNIB to have been the biggest ever by blind people - another world record. That's it for this week. We'd be delighted, as always, to hear your reactions to anything in the programme, you can call us on 0800 044 044 or you can e-mail the programme here at In Touch. And from tomorrow you can download a podcast of tonight's edition. From me Peter White, my producer Cheryl Gabriel and the rest of the team, goodbye. Back to top |
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