Why Are You So Scared Of Access?

You there, imaginary members of the arts industry I’ve just made up, why, oh why, are you so scared of building accessibility in your show?

Do you not know it’s a way of including features in your show that allows more audiences to experience your work in ways you may not have previously considered?  

Are you scared of surtitles or something?

Or is the terror of making a creative endeavour hard enough without the risk of also failing to provide appropriate access to disabled audiences? Does the very thought of holding another spinning plate shudder through your spine deep at night as you try to enter the kingdom of slumber?

Well there’s a twist in this tale. That imaginary member of the arts industry I just mentioned, was me!

*Thunder sounds*

As a comedian, we like to pretend that what we do on stage has been thought of right there and then. That audiences are watching a new thought be born into the world, rather than the reality being more like hacking a wooden log over 5 months up and down the M62.

So how do you keep the feeling of immediacy, whilst also having captions that tell hearing-impaired audiences the words being spoken? Or keep the surprise props hidden from visually-impaired audiences without leaving them behind at the big reveal?

Well, having spent a couple of years working access into comedy shows, rather than seeing it as something that is added in, access can be such a joyful and world building element of creativity. It can not only allow audiences previously unable to experience work, but also elevate existing material.

As I begin to talk about the process in my show, Edy Hurst’s Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Himself, I’ll state that I’m not an expert.  Not being an expert is a gift in a lot of ways, as because you don’t know a lot you’re always asking people who know more than you to share their expertise. Or you should be.

My friend and comedy/theatre maker/producer Daniel Nicholas created a show called Eugene where captions were sent straight to audience members’ phones as the voice of an A.I. character (before A.I. was cool).

It built the access into the show, giving the audience an insight that the character on- stage didn’t have, making access into another creative game within the production.

This idea of making access as a creative part of the show was something I saw again in the work of Alice Christina-Corrigan, head of lala arts, a company that focusses on integrating access creatively.

There are people in the world that want to go to see shows, that want to enjoy work that is being made, to feel part of a live experience, that are unable to due to a fear of creators being more creative, of expressing your ideas in another way.

You don’t have to re-invent the wheel or get a license for the most expensive cutting-edge product in the world, but what you can do is ask for folks from these disabled communities to tell you what they want in order to enjoy your work, and take advantage of the incredible work already done by other artists and companies.

I worked with Alice from the very beginning of the project to make sure that access was always something that was part of the show, and I cannot recommend enough considering and integrating access from the beginning. Even if it must change along the way, keeping an open dialogue with accessibility means it’s never an afterthought.

As we premiered my current show at the Lowry, we were part of the Enhance programme with Extant, which involved touch tour training and developing programme notes for audience members before the show began. These tours are also useful for neurodivergent audiences too, to be in the space in a relaxed, low-sensory environment can help you become accustomed to a show rather than going in with no knowledge of what to expect.

We have also created captioning and audio description in the script. I naturally often will describe things on stage, so we just made sure that anything visual that was significant was included, which often allows you to elevate a joke rather than lose it. Having Emily Bold produce thematically appropriate captions also allowed us to create extra inside jokes.

As an ADHDer, I can often go on tangents, and comedy celebrates these surprise moments. There’s no reason that improvised captioning cannot be prepared with a hot-key on qlab or other software with a specific joke for that moment that retains the voice of the show.

I appreciate these particular choices aren’t for everyone, and they shouldn’t be. Creatively this worked for my show as it takes audiences on a particular journey, with specific beats and lines, but there isn’t only on answer to access, and just as every performance and show is unique, so too is the way to connect with each audience.

I was fortunate for this show to be commissioned by Lowry’s Developed With Programme, and supported by Arts Council England allowing me to compensate the time of others on the team appropriately. Funding, as we are all very aware, can often be an issue for access both for creators and audiences, and it sure would be nice to recognise that even if only in a cynical-economic-sense, there are 1000s of possible tickets sales not happening across the theatre world simply because access is not being reasonably supported.

Having said that, my previous show Edy Hurst’s Comedy Version of Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of H.G Wells’ Literary Version (Via Orson Welles’ Radio Version and Steven Spielberg’s Film Version) of the War of the Worlds was made on a shoe string budget (and occasionally used shoes strings for the props), but thanks to some consultation support from Drunken Chorus, I was amazed at how small tweaks to the script to incorporate Audio Description benefited audiences that needed it.

We’re in a world where access has never been easier at a smaller scale, and it will continue to become even easier. There are folks that are used to living everyday in spaces that are not designed for them, and even to experience something that, whilst may not be the perfect way to perform for them, is still better than what most of the world is currently doing, feels to me like something worth considering as we continue to create new work.

As Alice said when I asked for her advice: “don’t be afraid to try, it can be really intimidating making accessible work. But my advice is to follow your creativity, question how the story can be aided by access (instead of kept separate) and to take baby steps in advancing your artistry to a whole new level.”

Edy Hurst's Wonderful Discoverie of Witches In The Countie Of Himself

Thu 12 - Fri 13 Dec at 9pm

Tickets £8 - £12 (+booking fee)