Jahannah James: Life as a hard of hearing actor and content creator! (BSL)

Hi everyone, my name is Jahannah James, I’m a Londoner born and bred and I’m an actor and content creator.

I grew up with Glue Ear and always had hearing issues and grommets etc, but it wasn’t until I was 17 I got diagnosed with two Cholesteatoma Tumours, one in each middle ear.

They are non cancerous but they erode the middle ear and hearing bones and need to be surgically removed. My left tumour was quite advanced and the head surgery was fairly invasive and included the total removal of all my hearing bones.

I went deaf overnight, which was terrifying. I still had some hearing in my right ear, but I was unsure if the smaller tumour would take that too. For a year while I was recovering from surgery I experienced isolation from the hearing world and the barriers of not being able to follow conversations, teachers in class or understand the Tv very well.

It was during this time I learnt to subconsciously lipread, and became great at just guessing responses to people asking me things!

After that year I had more rounds of surgery to remove the tiny tumour on my right with minimal damage, and try and reconstruct my left ear with prosthetic hearing bones, which did restore some hearing but were not as successful as hoped. The doctors then sent me for hearing aids and I’ve been wearing my gadgets ever since.

In 2019 just before the pandemic I decided to enroll on a BSL level one course. I enjoyed it a lot and it was my entry way into the deaf community as my family is hearing and I had never properly even met a deaf person.

When lockdown started I moved on to learn level 2 and 3 online on zoom, which was a much more difficult environment to learn in, especially something so visual as everyones in a tiny box signing at once. I started watching BSL zone and reading the Limping Chicken and went up to London to support the BSL Act outside parliament.

I still felt very much an outsider to the deaf world and even as a fairly confident person I struggled to have the guts to introduce myself and sign with strangers. However, I saw an advert for an open casting for a deaf or hard of hearing actress for a role in BSL or SSE so I decided to self tape an audition and I was offered the role of Dawn on Four Deaf Yorkshiremen.

Heading up to Yorkshire to shoot with an entirely deaf cast and crew was amazing, I was thrown in the deep end with my level 2/3 sign and to just be immersed in deaf culture and language was what I needed. I also found a brand new passion for acting in sign.

I’d always been told by my acting teachers that I was way too expressive for camera and always being directed to tone myself down. In sign language I could be as expressive as I wanted, in fact the more the better!

I also encountered other sides to the deaf world, deaf identity and deafhood, deaf humour and also deaf hierarchy. I met some deaf people who were not so welcoming as they saw my hearing aids as my identity aligning with the hearing world, or were frustrated at my signing skills. This only made me want to continue my BSL journey and sign up to level 4 and level 6.

I always knew I wanted to act. As a child I would watch a movie and then give myself fifteen minutes to fashion myself a costume and some props and imitate what I’d seen.

Once, my Mum was throwing away old yellow curtains and I begged her to let me try and make myself a dress to be like the Von Trapp children from the Sound of Music. I didn’t know how to sew, but I still attempted to make myself an awful dress and spend the summer holidays in it! I think I never stopped playing dress up and make believe and I am so happy it can be a job!

I also love history, stories, film and reading about anything that fires up my imagination. Ancient civilisations and lost technologies of the past really interest me and so in 2020 I started a YouTube channel to document my research and travels into ancient sites like those in Egypt and Turkey.

Being hard of hearing, people assume I’m rude or deliberately ignoring them, when I simply cannot hear them approach me. I do meet people who – weirdly – think my hearing aids are jewellery because I like to decorate them with colours and gems!

I’ve got in the habit now of explaining up front and to let people know it’s okay to tap me and wave at me.

In 2022 I was cast in an ITV show called DEEP HEAT which was about a deaf girl who wanted to become a professional wrestler. It was the most epic experience of my life, and I was so excited to work with the writers who wanted to incorporate my deaf experience into the role.

It was nice to see a mainstream show have a lead deaf character but the premise of the show is not solely focused on that.

In my other acting roles, I’ve been able to incorporate my deafness into most of my characters that were originally written as hearing, one production even sourced me a 1960s style hearing aid for my character.

My absolute dream would be to combine all my passions and get to play a role similar to Indiana Jones. I’d also love to help create a genuine mainstream/deaf world hybrid Tv show or movie that showcases BSL and deaf identity without the stereotypes, and also showing the wild spectrum that it can be to be deaf.

In my journey I’ve been hearing, deaf, hard of hearing and experienced being a fish out of water in both the hearing world and the deaf.

BSL helped me find a community and a language that taps into my super theatrical and expressive personality.

For those reading this who wish to embark on an acting career, my advice would be to just dive in and start anywhere! Try not to be afraid of looking like an idiot at first. The entry fee to being good at anything is looking like a bit of a plum in the beginning.

Time is going to pass anyway, it’s your choice, you’ll turn your next birthday age whether you start that course, hobby or project, you might as well celebrate that milestone alongside it.

Jahannah’s Instagram/ Tiktok/ Youtube is ‘Funny Olde World’

You can see Jahannah as Dawn in Four Deaf Yorkshiremen on LumoTV (formerly BSL zone)  and Jahanna will be appearing in the upcoming Series of BBC Shakespeare and Hathaway Detective series.