Help for hard of hearing at theatre
Hearing loss is now a major public health issue which affects over 10 million people in the UK – one in six of the population
Of these, 40% of over 50-year-olds and more than 70% of people over the age of 70 have some form of hearing loss
As people continue to live longer, these figures are set to increase, and by 2031 there will be more than 14.5 million deaf, deafened and hard of hearing people in the UK*
If your parent has age-related hearing loss. they may find conversation with friends and relatives becomes more difficult, particularly in noisy environments, and they may start avoiding some of the social activities they used to enjoy
If your parent is a theatre lover, for example, do they struggle to hear what the actors are saying, miss all the jokes and punchlines, and wonder what the rest of the audience is laughing at? Is it difficult for them to follow the words of a song when the orchestra is playing loudly? If so, all is not lost because there’s now a service called ‘captioning’ which is available in many UK theatres, and it means that your parent can enjoy a trip to the theatre with family and friends rather than stay at home and miss out on the fun
What are theatre captions?
Does your parent use subtitles to help you follow television programmes? If so, they’ll find that theatre captions are very similar, enabling anyone with a hearing loss to follow plays and musicals through English text displayed on a screen next to the stage or in the set
The captions are prepared in advance of the show (ie not typed live!) and include the name of the character who is speaking, sound effects and descriptions of music; they are shown on three lines of amber letters which scroll upwards at the same time as the actors speak or sing
Theatres reserve a block of seats with the most comfortable view of the captions and stage and there are often reduced ticket prices for people who need to use the captions
Over 650 theatre performances are captioned each year in more than 85 venues across the UK. A list of forthcoming shows can be found on STAGETEXT website here
Use the booking information given on the listing to ensure you get seats in the correct area. There’s usually only one captioned performance, sometimes two, during a run, but for big the West End musicals and the larger theatres there will often be repeat performances
Have a look at this film, Getting More Theatre For Your Bucks, which shows hard of hearing and deaf people talking about what captioned theatre means to them
Talks and tours in museums and galleries
If your parent enjoys visiting museums and galleries, they might like to know that there’s now a growing number of talks and tours with speech-to-text transcription, also called live subtitling
Venues now offering the service include the British Museum, British Library, Hunterian Museum, National Gallery, the Royal Academy of Arts and the Wellcome Collection in London. Recent topics have included the work of artists such as Vermeer, David Hockney, Turner and Monet, as well as events featuring the classical historian Mary Beard and the English artist Grayson Perry
This short subtitled video explains how speech-to-text works for talks and what visitors think. Watch it here
More information
Further information on captioned theatre and talks with live subtitles in museums and galleries can be found at www.stagetext.org
To receive regular information, you can email [email protected] and ask to go on our FREE mailing list. If you don’t have internet access, please write to STAGETEXT, First Floor, 54 Commercial Street, London E1 6LT and ask to go on our postal mailing list. This is only sent out every three months so we advise people to use email wherever possible
STAGETEXT is a registered charity established in May 2000 by three people with different types of hearing loss. It is regularly funded by Arts Council England
