Deaf girl unable to access Frozen and Hex musicals as theatres offer limited captioned performances

The mother of a Deaf nine-year-old has shared their experience of trying to attend accessible theatre performances during the coronavirus pandemic, after her daughter has been unable to see Frozen: The Musical or the National Theatre’s Hex with captions.

Alison Miles and her daughter Harriet – who is a cochlear implant user – booked to see Hex on New Year’s Eve, but the performance was cancelled when the National postponed the show until 5 January due to “extensive Covid disruption”.

Ms Miles, from London, wrote on Instagram on Monday: “[We booked because] they offered smart glasses – glasses with captions. Hurrah! So easy. 

“They cancelled the tickets because the cast got Covid. No big deal, everyone had Covid over Christmas. They also gave me a voucher to rebook BUT they can no longer offer smart glasses.

“Why? Nobody knows. I guess they just decided deaf people don’t matter.”

The smart captions glasses, launched in October 2018, allow audience members to watch post-press night performances of a National Theatre production with captions – instead of the one date where the show is open captioned by the arts access charity Stagetext.

However, the Omicron variant of coronavirus meant Hex was unable to have its official press night, with the National Theatre’s website saying the smart captions glasses were unavailable “due to cancellations”.

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A post shared by Ali Miles (@alipalipanju)

In a statement to The Limping Chicken, a National Theatre spokesperson said: “Access provision is of utmost importance at the National Theatre as we strive to make our productions accessible to all.

“Due to disruption to Hex caused by Covid, we regrettably were unable to provide smart caption glasses for this production before the end of its run.

“They will be available alongside all access provision including Sensory Adapted and BSL performances when Hex returns in November, and we look forward to welcoming audiences back then.”

Hex closed on 22 January, but is due to return to the venue in November.

Just weeks after the mother and daughter were unable to access the National Theatre production, the pair had booked to see the musical adaptation of the hit Disney movie Frozen, currently playing at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane on London’s West End.

After Harriet tested positive for coronavirus, the duo had to cancel their plans to see the captioned performance last Sunday and were offered a credit voucher for another performance “within a few hours”.

“[Frozen] runs until October – another nine months of eight shows a week. 72 more shows and how many are captioned or interpreted? ZERO.

“Have I emailed the accessibility email address saying surely this is a mistake? Yes I have. Did it take them 22 days to respond last time I emailed them asking which were the best seats to see the interprete /captions? Yes it did.

“Are tickets booking up while I wait? Yes they are,” Ms Miles added.

A spokesperson for Frozen: The Musical told The Limping Chicken: “The new access performances – as part of the new booking period – are in progress. The next captioned performance is on 14 September at 7pm.

“It goes on sale later this week – and vouchers can be redeemed for this performance.”

Responding to comments she has received from people about a refund, the mother stressed that “I don’t want a refund! I want accessible theatre”.

“Is it brilliant that [Rose Ayling-Ellis] won Strictly? Of course! Is it fantastic that the BSL Bill went unchallenged through parliament on Friday? An excellent step forward.

“Are things still fundamentally s**t for all disabled people on a very real level? Yes. Heartbreakingly, rage-inducingly so,” she wrote.

When asked how the situation made her feel as a young theatregoer, Harriet said: “I felt quite disappointed and upset because I was excited to be able to understand what the actors were saying.

“The glasses and the captions would have helped me a lot as well as the other deaf kids.”

Ms Miles’ Instagram post has since received more than 950 likes at the time of writing, with Ms Ayling-Ellis also showing support by sharing it to her Stories.

Expressing support for the Miles’ situation, one deaf person commented: “I can relate to this so much. It’s so difficult to get accessible theatre and cinema performances (or anything else in society for that matter) – yet the solutions exist and are so easy to implement.”

“Same here, we went to go see Hamilton and there was only one day with interpreters and one day with closed captions. This was in the entire run of Hamilton in LA,” wrote another.

A third added: “I’m a theatregoer! I’m fed up [of seeing] one day for interpreter or captions. I want to be equality as hearing people.”

The Limping Chicken has also reached out to Stagetext for comment.

Photo: Johan Persson (Frozen) and Brinkhoff-Moegenberg (Hex).

By Liam O’Dell. Liam is an award-winning Deaf freelance journalist and campaigner from Bedfordshire. He can be found talking about disability, theatre, politics and more on Twitter and on his website.

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Update – 09/02/2022 – 10:30: In a statement to The Limping Chicken, a Stagetext spokesperson said they “completely understand” the frustrations of Ms Miles and other captions users “about the availability of captioned shows”.

“Stagetext always advocates for choice, we advise theatres to include multiple captioned shows in their run, making sure audiences can pick from midweek and weekend performances. This is particularly important for family shows when it may be difficult for children to attend during the week.

“Our dedicated theatre manager books in as many captioned shows as possible, however the final decision on the number of captioned performances in a run, as well as the time and date that they’re on, will be decided by the show’s production team and/or the theatre. 

“We have been talking with the production team behind Frozen the Musical to try and arrange additional captioned performances. Any extra dates we are able to book in will in part be thanks to how vocal and passionate our caption users have been.

“We were able to take their feedback directly to the production team to illustrate how important choice is when putting on captioned performances.

“Shows that are cancelled due to Covid are unavoidable, but the health of cast, crew, and audience members should always come first. These cancellations highlight the need for more captioned performances.

“If there are more accessible shows in a run, then a single cancellation would have less impact for deaf, deafened, and hard of hearing audiences,” they said.