Captioned theatre slumped by almost 8% when venues reopened after Covid lockdowns, Stagetext reveals

The arts access charity Stagetext saw a 7.5% fall in captioned theatre performances last year, compared to the pre-Covid numbers of 2019/20, it has been revealed.

The decrease means there were 24 fewer shows available to deaf audiences in 2021/22, even though venues and organisations captioned livestreamed performances the year before.

In April 2020, 12.8 million people around the world watched a free online recording of The Phantom of the Opera, with 2.5 million viewing the content with subtitles provided by Stagetext.

As well as the drop in captioned theatre shows, the charity also witnessed an almost 40% fall in the number of requests for subtitled online content last year, compared to 2020/21.

Commenting on the statistics, Stagetext chief executive Melanie Sharpe said: “With diversity and inclusion being a priority for venues, we hoped the increase in access we saw during lockdown, would remain once doors reopened.

“We know more people were at home during lockdown, but those 12 million deaf people in the UK, still want and need to access the arts. They want to visit a museum and be able to watch video exhibits; they want to see the trailer for a theatre production, with subtitles and then be able to book a captioned performance for the same show.

“There are millions of people who would pay to visit an exhibition, see a performance, or share a venue’s content, if the venue just made these things available to deaf people.”

Supporter Jason Sedon added: “In lockdown I suddenly had access to a lot of events and shows that I’ve never experienced or knew about before. It was exciting to have such a variety of choice and I expected this level of choice to continue. As the restrictions lifted, I am seeing fewer events that are visibly accessible to someone like me.”

Monday’s figures come just days after the Heritage Access 2022 survey – produced by VocalEyes in collaboration with Stagetext, Autism In Museums and the Centre for Accessible Environments – found more than half (53%) of over 3,000 museums and heritage websites did not include subtitles on their videos.

This is despite a survey, commissioned by Stagetext last year, finding that nearly a quarter (24%) of the UK’s population have subtitles on all the time at home, with 26% having them on some of the time.

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.