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The Disability and…Podcast gets right to the heart of some of the most pressing issues in arts, culture and beyond with a series of bold, provocative and insightful interviews with disabled artists, key industry figures and the odd legend. The Disability and…Podcast is currently monthly.
Intro
Welcome to the Disability and... podcast bringing together thoughtful discussion and debate. This month. Digital Operations Manager Joe Turnbull chats with TV Access Project Lead, Eli Beaton and writer and producer Jack Thorne about the TV Access Project. This podcast contains some strong language.
Joe Turnbull
Welcome to the Disability and... podcast. My name is Joe Turnbull. I'm the Digital operations manager at Disability Arts Online. This month, we're looking at access to TV. So, I'm really pleased to be joined by Eli Beaton, who is a member of DAO's Board, a former freelance producer for unscripted TV, and is project lead for the TV access project. I'm also really thrilled to be joined by the multi award winning playwright and screenwriter Jack Thorne, whose credits probably include some of your favourite Telly over the last few years, certainly lots of mine, like Adolescence. This is England, Skins, Shameless and recent disability specific TV highlights, like Cast Offs, Crip Tales. But Jack has also made waves in campaigning for disability representation on and off screen. Thanks both for joining us on the Disability and... podcast. And I should probably say a welcome back, actually, to Jack, who last joined us in 2020 when we were working with Graeae on the podcast. So welcome both.
Eli Beaton
Thanks for having us.
Jack Thorne
Thank you for having us,
Joe Turnbull
Jack, I think your awards cabinet is probably bigger than my drinks cabinet, which is definitely saying something, because I do enjoy a drink.
Jack Thorne
Good.
Eli Beaton
Where do you keep them, Jack, I've never asked you this. Where do you keep them?
Jack Thorne
in a room that no one goes in apart from my family and I Yeah, yeah, but I do keep they are out. They're not in a like a cupboard. They are out so that I can look at them and go aah and then and then go back to real life. So, they do reassure me, which is tragedy, because they shouldn't. It should just be they mean nothing, but they do mean something to me, which is, which is appalling of me to admit.
Joe Turnbull
No, not at all. I think, I think it would be ridiculous if you said they didn't, but hey, you must have had a bit of an extension to that room relatively recently.
Jack Thorne
Yeah, no, adolescence, has won a few, which has been very, very nice and very, very strange. Yeah, I gave the speech at the globes and standing up there and looking down at those people who were in front of me, the sort of superstars that were in front of me, was one of the strangest experiences of my life. But reality returned soon enough.
Joe Turnbull
I can imagine it was pretty surreal experience, to be fair. Yeah, I could talk all day about the TV that Jack's made and his many awards and what else he gets up to with them, but we are here to talk about the TV access project. So, I was hoping you could both just tell our listeners a bit about what the TV access project is, and kind of what you both do in relation to the TV Access Project.
Eli Beaton
Yeah, absolutely. So, TV access project or TAP, which we'll probably say throughout this podcast, TAP is an alliance of the nine biggest broadcasters and streamers in the TV industry. So our members are the BBC, ITV, channel four, Paramount, Sky, UK TV, STV, Britbox and Disney plus and those organisations have pledged to work together towards an industry that is fully inclusive of Deaf, disabled and Neurodivergent people by 2030 so we've got a big goal to work towards, and as part of TAP, I'm the project lead, so I'm really just helping us to be guided towards that goal, I should probably turn to Jack, actually, because Jack really was the catalyst through both the underlying health condition campaign and his McTaggart to really get this momentous project going.
Jack Thorne
I mean, there was a gang of us, and I was just the gobbiest one. It started really with a conversation between Genevieve Barr and I during the pandemic, when and the reason why we called underlying health condition was because Liz Carr said that she thought she should change her name to underlying health condition, considering that's how people wanted to treat her. And we felt very exasperated by the way that disabled people, our friends were being treated during that pandemic, the horrifying stories, I'm sure you've heard a few times on here, and thought that television should be in that space. And we formed this group underlying health condition, which include Holly Lubran and Katie Player and. And the thing that Katie said to us was, disability doesn't work like any other of the sort of diversity issues in television. Disability requires television to behave in a different way. And I'd not really taken that on. I'd not really seen the reality of that before, but her saying that really supercharged something, I think, in me and in Genevieve and in the group of us. And so, we set about writing this report underlying health condition that was looking at the way that TV facilitates or fails to facilitate for disabled creatives. And it was horrifying. And in the middle of it, I was asked to do the MacTaggart lecture. And so, I did this lecture, and it created a bit of good noise. And Charlotte Moore and Ian Katz both contacted me afterwards to say, the BBC and Channel Four, respectively are going to come up with answers to this. And I said, what if there was a pan industry response? What if all of you work together? Because this is not as simple as one channel or another. That that's what Kate That's what Katie's central claim was, you know, this cannot be solved by the BBC behaving differently. This, this can only be solved by the whole industry behaving differently. And bless them, they leaned in and they we had this conversation, which we then got DANC involved with Triple C, DANC involved in and DTPTV involved in and all these different groups involved in and everyone said their piece, and the broadcasters said their piece and said, Sorry, because our central thing was disabled People have been let down awfully and from that, became a sort of ad hoc group that slowly transformed itself into TAP, the TV Access Project. Yeah.
Joe Turnbull
I mean, that McTaggart lecture, I think, was viewed as a bit of a watershed moment at the time. I mean, certainly I watched it a few times. Lots of, you know, lots of people in our disability arts world were sort of understandably enthused by it. I suppose the thrust of that McTaggart lecture was as was a call to action. Really, wasn't it for the for the TV industry as a whole, to venerate disabled stories told by disabled people, sort of paraphrasing there. But were you surprised by the fact that the broadcasters did get in touch with you after that?
Jack Thorne
I was surprised. I knew it was I knew it was an important moment. I knew that it was something that I got very lucky to be asked to do. And the speech was crowd sourced, you know, like, you know, the words were largely mine, but they were taken from all sorts of different people, and the words were passed through huge groups of people, all of whom who gave me notes on it, because I knew that if we got this bit right, then that would be incredibly helpful. I was expecting people to get in touch, because I thought that that's what happens when you when you say those sorts of things. You know that, and the words were pretty horrible. You know, TV has failed disabled people. You know that just those, those words are powerful in and of themselves. What I wasn't hopeful for was that the response would be enough that we'd be able to get this group going. And I think we were very lucky to have in Ian and Charlotte and in other people, but in those two at the beginning, people that were prepared to do the hard yards and were prepared to put themselves in those in those positions where they took some responsibility for this. And you know that first, that first group zoom as it was, where all these broadcasters came together, they weren't invited by us. They were invited by Charlotte. And I think being invited by Charlotte meant they all attended. So, you know, it was that, it was, I expected to have a response. I didn't expect them to lean in and the result of them leaning in it that we're still getting the benefit from that, even though, you know, Charlotte's, Charlotte's now left the BBC that that that was the sort of crucial, the crucial point in our journey, that first zoom and, and I remember I was wearing my aura ring during it and, and it thought that I'd been on a on a Serious, fast run during that first meeting, because I was so stressed and, and Eli is so capable in these meetings, you know, like, you know, and runs them like an efficient machine. I ran that first meeting, and I am not capable of running those things. And I was terrified the entire time that the wheels would go. Fall off and I would say something wrong or mishandle something or make someone feel awkward or excluded. And it's a hard business being a leader, and I, I wasn't a very good leader, which is why we were lucky enough to have Tanya and Ally take over, and me step back, and then, and then, incredibly lucky when Eli came in and took over from Tanya and Ally and has, you know, really pushed us to new heights. I think
Eli Beaton
what has happened as a result of this is something so special, so unique, that I don't think can ever be replicated again in our industry. So, it does feel like you're carrying this very, very precious baby that you don't want to drop because it's important, because it's your own lived experience, but it's the experience of so many other people. So, you know how important it is, and there's so few moments that someone like myself would have an open floor with the senior leaders of all of these broadcasters and streamers. It's just unheard of to have all of them sit in a room and listen to you about this important subject. And I think that's why it has been so effective, that there's that top level buy in that they have made it a priority, and that's what's kept it as a movement rather than a moment in time as well, because things can be so fleeting. In the industry, people are fickle. There are trends, and what we've done has sustained the past four years and to keep all of these organisations, so we've got our nine broadcasters and streamers as members. We also have our associate members, which are like smaller broadcasters, like LumoTV, A&E Networks, S4C. We have the international streamers like Netflix, Amazon Prime, all of the studios like ITV Studios, BBC studios, and then we have all of our partners, who are the industry bodies like Screen Skills, BAFTA, Creative Diversity Network, PACT and all of the brilliant, disabled led organisations like Triple C, DDPTV, whose work we really stand on the shoulders of so to keep All of those people engaged continuously for four years, shows how much everyone values this work, and that's really exciting.
Joe Turnbull
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, obviously you're in partnership with them now. But was, did it take much cajoling in those initial stages? Or was it sort of like, I guess, like a peer pressure type thing. Whereas if a couple of the broadcasters are on board and going to do this, then it's kind of like the rest of them kind of look bad if they're not going to sign up to it.
Jack Thorne
I think there was some reluctance at first from some quarters about what we were, what we were doing, and whether it was, whether it was going to be genuinely worth their time, or whether it was just like, as Eli just said, whether it just sort of be a moment that just passed. And I think that there was, there was definitely a recognition that the problem we were talking about was a real problem, and there was definitely a sense from them that they needed to do something about it. But I think some people thought, well, why do we need to do it as a group? I don't want to work with those people. And then, you know, I think Charlotte and Ian helped persuade them in and then, and then, the journey to keep them in has been one that both Ally and Tanya and Eli have had to negotiate and find their way through each time. And it's, it's never, never an easy thing. I wish, I wish that that you guys could have a recording of what Eli's like on those on those senior leaders meetings, because it is a tour de force in terms of how she manages everyone and keeps everyone happy and make sure that everyone is heard.
Joe Turnbull
I can imagine.
Eli Beaton
Yeah, and, I mean, Ally and Tanya set it up in such a good way. So those are the project leads from phase one, Ally castle and Tanya Motie, who are absolute forces to be reckoned with. And they've, they've set it up in such a really wonderful way where everyone has a, you know, skin in the game, that their voices are heard, and it's been done in such a professional way that people get it now that they know that everything that we do is very, you know, thoughtfully approached, very measured and has long term impact as well, that we're not just putting time and money into something again that will you know last a year, that everything that we do, we're essentially restructuring the way that TV is made forever, hopefully changing those mechanisms. Because the idea is, you know, we're working towards that goal of 2030 we're not necessarily going to be coming together till, you know, in 20, 30,40, years. So, what we need to do now is make those changes that are going to be sustainable and long term.
Jack Thorne
Eli, is it worth explaining how the policies we suggest come about, in terms of how the groups work and how our ideas are formulated.
Eli Beaton
Yeah, so we have work streams, and each work stream has been set up to address a very specific barrier that exists in the industry. And those work streams are made up of individuals from our members, Associate members and partners, as well as disabled freelancers who might have lived or work experience expertise in that particular area. So, to tackle this barrier, come up with solutions that then come to the core Steering Group, which Jack and Genevieve Barr are still a part of, and then we take and pitch that to the senior leaders of our members. So, a couple of examples of some really big changes that we've been able to make. I come from a production background, and before joining TAP, I was doing lots of training with production companies, and if I had a penny for every time they'd say to me, but we just don't have enough money in the budget, I would have retired at 30. So, in order to address that, TAP, developed this solution whereby all access on production is covered separately from the production budget. So, anything that facilitates access for on screen and off-screen talent is a separate fund internally within the commissioning body. So, if you're making a show from the BBC, it will come directly from the BBC. If you're making it for Channel four and so on. And it means that finance can never, ever be an excuse not to hire and include and progress really great talent. So, we've seen some really, really interesting examples of how that's been utilised. It can be anything from something really small, like a piece of kit that's used one off. It can be as big as we've seen sets, whole sets being changed and developed. So, it's been really great to see that being taken up. Other areas that we've had are around the role of access coordinator, which Jack really highlighted in his McTaggart about the role of access coordinator. And we've seen that now rolled out across the industry as a standardised role that is being very much embedded in high end TV now, and we're seeing it very emerging in the unscripted sector. So, programs like Traitors, Race Across the World, Love Island. They're all regularly using access coordinators on their productions as well. So yeah, we currently have nine different barriers that we were monitoring and developing changes in.
Joe Turnbull
Wow, you must have had lots of testimonies, actually, from people who've kind of benefited from some of those things that have already been implemented. Is there any that sort of stand out? I mean, just having an access coordinator on set must be a massive change for the disabled talent involved in stuff, having that person who can advocate for them, and is there as a go to and stuff?
Eli Beaton
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the amount of times access coordinators say to us that they have people going, I've never been asked about my access requirements before, ever. I've never told anyone, and that's throughout the whole crew. This is, you know, from your big on-screen names right down to, you know, lighting runners, you name it, absolutely everyone through an access coordinator has the opportunity to share their access requirements with someone, and that's really exciting. And you've, you've worked with them across all of your predictions as well, haven't you Jack?
Jack Thorne
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's also hearing stories where people go, where people aren't really aware that that the invisible hand of TAP has helped. You know, like talking to my friends at Warp, who I made Adolescence with about how the set of Reunion worked, which is the show that they made, and it's Billy Mager wrote. And like you just, you just hear little bits and pieces where you go, oh, that was, that was TAP that made that happen and that that's huge and beautiful. And what you want is for us to be invisible. That's, that's the aim with all of this. And that thing of, you know, inclusion by 2030 that's what the aim is, that we just fade into the distance and when, and when that's already happening, that's when it feels particularly, particularly gratifying.
Joe Turnbull
I think it's really interesting that you set a kind of you've given yourself a deadline. Deadlines are good for working too, right? But that's a. It's a lot of changes to make by 2030 I suppose I'd love to hear that, how you kind of arrived at that as, not necessarily, I did that as a date because, but it's just the need for having a hard deadline for it really, and the idea of you kind of not existing after that as a as a thing, yeah, I don't know if you could say something about that,
Jack Thorne
yeah, that, yeah, and I think it was just, you know, a date, rather than we did a calculation and went, oh, we need this. This that long, and this will take that long. The truth is, it's all taken longer than we thought it would. Each, each, each piece is pushing a stone up a hill. And, you know, if, if it's not achieved by then, that's not us having failed. That's just us extending the target a bit further and going okay. So this didn't happen, but this did when I was first researching the MacTaggart, the doubling disability, which was a CDN aim that they set up with all the broadcasters to double disabled targets, and they set a limit on that, and it didn't reach that, but that, just then, became a call to action in terms of that was something I was able to highlight in my speech, that I actually think we are going to get closer than I thought we might at a certain point. You know that I think we will. We will see some figures hit an appropriate margin of failure, rather than what it is now which is a gross failure, you know that. And to get towards that appropriate margin of failure would be a huge, huge statement. I think
Eli Beaton
it helps keep us really focused. If we put, you know, a never-ending date on the work that we do, it could then end up becoming a never-ending piece of work. But it's really helpful to be able to have that quite specific goal. It keeps us focused, it keeps people energised, and it keeps people engaged. So, it's been really, really useful. And, yeah, that doubling disability figure was set in 2018 I think it was, and an independent organisation reviewed it and said, Oh, at this rate, you're not going to reach doubling disabled people in the industry by 2028 we actually reached it last year, and I think that's a huge part down to the work that TAP has done over the past couple of years.
Joe Turnbull
Yeah, absolutely. I think it's nice that you didn't set it too far in the future, which is the usual sort of government approach, right? Like we'll half emissions by 2065 or what you know, to some point in the future that's so far ahead that they won't be accountable for it when it's there, like it, you know, 2030 even when it was set was not, was not so far in the future that. So, I really respect that. It'd be interesting to hear the relationship between TAP and CDN, actually, because we've done a little bit of work with creative diversity network, and they're behind the diamond diversity monitoring scheme. So yeah, do you work? You work closely with creative diversity network as kind of in tandem?
Eli Beaton
yeah. So CDN, are a really important partner of TAP. We've been working on a lot of projects very closely with them. One of the key ones so far is around accessibility of the spaces that exist in the TV industry. Our members committed to only working with studios and postproduction facilities that have completed an access description checklist. So fundamentally, it's a bit of a self-audit that TAP has designed so that the physical spaces that we work in in the industry can get a really good understanding of their current accessibility, put a timeline and a bit of a roadmap in place to improve their accessibility, but also fundamentally be able to communicate that to people that are coming in and working in their spaces, because as a freelancer, every couple of months, your working environment is a is a brand new place. So, to be empowered with that information about the accessibility of a space in advance enables you to understand what access requirements you might need, what conversations might need to be had. So, they are hosting that checklist for us. So, organisations can go on, they fill it in, they get a certificate to say they've completed it. As of the end of February, we'll be publishing the list of all of the organisations that have completed that checklist as well, so producers can go on and check that the spaces that they're working with have done that audit, hopefully is a really helpful way. I mean, the feedback we've got from organisations that have completed it is, you think about all the lifts and how expensive that's going to be. But actually, I was at Sky Studios Elstree last year, and they were saying, you know, it even the small things, like painting the frames of the doors in a contrasting colour in the hair and makeup rooms, making sure that there were clothes rails at different heights. You know, these are really, really small, inexpensive changes that can be made right now that have a huge impact on the people that are coming into your spaces. That diamond data is so important to be able to sense check where we are. They've recently done an announcement about diamond d2 they are relaunching it for the industry in a way that really streamlines it for freelancers who have to fill out diversity forms. All these forms that you have to fill out as a freelancer, if you're working on 10 productions a year can become quite a lot. So, it's been completely streamlined, and they've worked with us and lots of other organisations to make sure that the questions that they are asking the industry are meaningful and impactful, to be able to support all of us to continue working towards our goals of an accessible industry,
Joe Turnbull
sounds like a lot of positive changes. Are there, are there any ways that you think that since either of you've been in the TV industry that things have gone backwards?
Eli Beaton
I wouldn't say the TV industry. I think it's external factors, isn't it? So, we, you know, we can't function without access to work. Access to Work, if it isn't functioning properly for our industry, will completely undermine everything that we've been doing, because it's going to shut out a whole group of disabled people from even accessing the industry. So that's something that we are incredibly mindful of.
Jack Thorne
for everyone, obviously, you know, access to work is a nightmare, but, but there's stuff that TAP can do once a show is in production. But writers exist, and producers and, you know, there's a whole stream of people. I just think about writers, because that's where I where I go. But you know that that writers exist before a production even takes shape, and the idea that you can't get to places and you can't get inside places, and you can't be part of something because you're being denied your access is extraordinary, and it does feel like we're in an age where suddenly disabled writers are being treated seriously, the likes of Billy, the likes of Annalisa Dinnella, the likes of Genevieve Barr, the likes of Laurence Clark. You know what I mean, like, you know, a whole list of amazing disabled writers that are coming through. If they are not supported, then we're going to lose them. So, yeah, the anger towards the government right now is at peak volume.
Joe Turnbull
Yeah. I mean, we discussed access to work on this, this very podcast, quite a few times. But yes, it's a is, it's almost an existential threat to, you know, to disabled creatives of across industries, really, and I think it does have
Jack Thorne
and disabled people generally. You know, this was started out of an anger at how society was treating disabled people, and going, why isn't TV managing to reflect society? We probably need a drama that specifically looks at Access to Work in order to create enough public anger that the government does something about it. How, how ridiculous is our world that that's the case. How ridiculous is our world that for some reason, you know, the disabled people are denied a governmental voice. 20% of our population being ignored. And we saw with PIP last year how brutal that ignoring can be. But yeah, I don't, I don't understand why they're not doing, you know, why Labor government is not doing anything about access to work?
Joe Turnbull
Yeah, it's a shame. Franz Kafka isn't around to write that for TV, really, because it feels like it would be a Kafkaesque
Jack Thorne
he would do a good job. He would do a good job. Annalisa Dinnella would do a beautiful job, as with Genevieve, as with Billy, as would, you know? So, yeah, let's give them some commissioners somewhere. Give them the brief.
Joe Turnbull
Absolutely.
Eli Beaton
There have been some really nice ways over the past couple of years that the industry has and this is because of having disabled people in writers’ room and as part of casts and crews. Code of silence on ITV last year, the mother character of Rose Ayling-Ellis's character, who was also deaf, was talking about how access to work were trying to call her for her assessment and how that didn't meet her access requirements. There was another one recently, I think it was silent witness or something like that, where they said, oh no, this is my access to work, support worker. And just having that dropped out through programs is really, really powerful, and is why the screen industry is so important. And although it can appear to seem that we've got the money to be able to do this without access to work. That is absolutely not the case, and if the government want to continue having a soft power like television, making change and influence on society at large, then they need to make sure that people aren't excluded from that workforce.
Joe Turnbull
Yeah, let's hope they're listening.
Eli Beaton
Yeah. But I think internally, what's been really, really interesting is, over the past few years, the conversation has moved from why to how people get it. People are on board now, but what we're seeing is now that we have programs like Reunion, Code of Silence, we need more BSL interpreters who understand the media landscape and how to work on set with actors and directors. So, making sure that we've got BSL interpreters who are trained to do that, that productions know where to find them as well. So that's one big piece of work that we're embarking on this year is how we can create a kind of resource where people know that they can get all of these services, because we get phone calls all the time. I need an accessible hair and makeup truck or a BSL interpreter or support worker, so it's making sure that productions are linked up to those services. I think that's the next step for us,
Jack Thorne
but the fact that there are now honey wagons that are accessible is a huge change and has happened, you know, when we when we did our underlying health condition report, there was one accessible toilet available for productions, and it looked like a horse box, whereas now they're all over the place, and they're rather beautiful,
Eli Beaton
and an exec producer that we work with last year was able to have lunch with the rest of the crew for the first time of her career, because they'd managed to get a catering truck that was wheelchair accessible. So, hearing about those moments, that's the true inclusion piece. Isn't it like, oh my God, finally being able to have lunch with the rest of your team.
Joe Turnbull
It's kind of tragic that that's so amazing. It is, I know, and also to hear toilets described as beautiful is always but I hundred percent understand where you're coming from. Yeah. Are there any other of TAP's sort of long-term ambitions, slash changes you want to see that you haven't had chance to talk about so far that you'd like to you'd like to highlight,
Eli Beaton
guess, one of the kind of big bits of work is looking at talent progression and retention, which is one of the interesting ones, because things like funding, things like accessible toilets, they're kind of very obvious, practical changes that we can make, whereas making sure that there's those sustainable career routes into senior roles for disabled talent is a little bit more abstract on what we can do as TAP to address that. So that's one thing that we're going to be very focused on as well over the coming years, is making sure that, and again, we have seen really positive changes. We're seeing loads of really great disabled people in commissioning roles, but we need to make sure that that's sustainable, that we're mindful of the intersection experience of people working in TV as well. So yeah, that's going to be something that we need to tackle.
Jack Thorne
The worst, the worst part of the diamond figures, when I was doing them at MacTaggart lecture, were in commissioning. 3.6% of commissions commissioners consider themselves disabled. That is starting to improve, but it's still very, very sluggish,
Eli Beaton
and it's the one figure as well that's just stayed consistently low and dipped at various points as well. We've gone backwards on that which is scary,
Jack Thorne
the gatekeepers define television. That's the truth of it. And we need to change who the gatekeepers are a little
Joe Turnbull
in terms of other headwinds. Is there a threat to all of this work within the current sort of anti EDI, anti-woke agenda that I think is very much coming from the other side of the pond, but I think it would be remiss of us to think it's already started here a bit, and could very well be here in a very big way quite soon.
Jack Thorne
The biggest threat, I think, is the industry downturn. And I think a lot of a lot of disabled creatives have felt the cold winds of that. And when linear switch off happens, when public service broadcasting is changed in its essence, because linear dies, what will be the new leaders in our country will be very, very important. And that, again, is part of the reason why 2030, is so important that you know that we need to make change happen rapidly, so that the industry is different by the time that the. What the BBC is, what channel four is, is fundamentally altered forever. Yeah, and it's not far away.
Eli Beaton
I think the way that TAP was set up has been really clever, because it's kind of protected our work from that anti woke agenda that's coming from across the pond, because we have that really senior buy in from all of our members that really kind of protects us. So, I think the way that we've been set up means that we haven't really felt the impact of that in our work, which is good. I think generally, the industry is changing fundamentally, and that's what we need to be mindful of.
Joe Turnbull
That's good to hear because there's other very big industries who are already in the UK, cancelling their EDI programs wholesale, you know, massive employers in big industries who've been, you know, singing about how well they're doing it, and then they dropped it overnight. It's like, the statistics on that are pretty scary. To be honest, it's like up to 50% of major employers
Jack Thorne
and the studios are not immune to that. And I think America's felt that, but, but it hasn't. It hasn't hit the UK in the same way
Joe Turnbull
Jack you've had a as we've already discussed, the pretty glittering career in TV and the wider industry. There must have been a lot of barriers to get there, but were there any sort of access initiatives or good working practices or particular organisations that have kind of opened the door for you?
Jack Thorne
Graeae, Graeae for me, were the most important, and when I went to my first Graeae open day, I didn't know whether I belonged at all. And I talked to a woman called Alex Bulmer, who's a wonderful writer, and said, I'm not sure this is, this is the right place for me. And she asked me what was going on, and I described what was going on for me. And she said, of course, you're a disabled person, and I've carried that with me ever since, and but yeah, that was there weren't, there weren't really any other major organisations that that have played a role for me. But I'm an old bastard, you know, like you know that there weren't that many around there. So, but Graeae was absolutely transformative for me.
Joe Turnbull
But have you been witness to any really good practice that you, like, have you been in, like, I don't know, writers rooms or things like that, where there's been good things happening that weren't necessarily initiated by TAP or driven by yourself, from outside
Jack Thorne
Bryony, who was the exec that Eli was talking about earlier on this show we made called Then Barbara Met Alan, that Genevieve and I wrote that Amit Sharma co-directed. The changes she made to call sheets were really, were really extraordinary, you know, in terms of just making them easily readable, inclusive in their in their heart, and also including statements as to how disabled people expected to be treated. So, yeah, that that that production was, was glorious and really fun. And you know that when you're when you're making a show about disabled people demanding to be heard and demanding to be part of an industry that you expect certain standards to be met. And it wasn't always perfect, but it was beautiful watching how you know mighty people like Bryony and Amit and Ruth Madeley and Genevieve sort of made the world that they wanted to they wanted to live in.
Joe Turnbull
Do you have any other favourite disabled led or disabled stories on that have been on screen over the years?
Jack Thorne
I thought Reunion and Code of Silence were both, were both fantastic, and I was so happy, and it felt like the beginning of something. I made a decision a few years ago. It felt like every disabled story I was somehow involved with, and that wasn't very healthy and what I was trying to talk about, which is, you know, the diversity of the disabled experience was being led by one person or certainly had one person involved in it rather too heavily. And so, I sort of thought, I'm not going to do this anymore. I'm just going to say no to these projects and say that you need other people involved in them. And neither of those projects, by the way, came anywhere near me. Reunion was started by Billy and, you know, and you know, and started as a spec script and Code of Silence came out of a totally different group of people, but, but just that feeling that disabled voices were becoming a plurality, plurality, I can't say the word was. I think it's really, really important. And hopefully it's the beginning of real change, and lots of people making a difference, and Ralph and Katie, which had so many talented writers and creatives working on it and giving them power to then to then make the changes. And then Rosie Jones has made her own show. You know that its change is starting to happen. It feels like across all our main channels and that that can only be a good thing.
Eli Beaton
I'm just a reality TV junkie myself and uncultured swine. So, for me, seeing contributors in programs like Married at First Sight, in Traitors, and it not being used as a, you know, a plot point, as a narrative device for that individual, I think has been really special. I used to specialise in casting, and I used to be horrified by the feedback I'd get from my series producers and exec producers; you know that BSL and deaf contributors, they're just too complicated. They're too messy. It needed to be the right type of disability. And I think that's been completely thrown out now, which is really, really beautiful to see, and I think also just has an impact on society as well. I always go back to, I think it's Meryl on season one of the Traitors, and how, I don't think they ever had a conversation about the fact that she was a woman of short stature throughout the whole series, and 10 years ago, five even five years ago, that would have been completely different. And the fact that from a more kind of technical program making standpoint that you could see that they'd made every task and challenge in the show accessible for her as well, like where they get strapped into a Ferris wheel and go round and round automatically. That was made accessible for her. And there was a moment on the show where she said, I've never been able to go on a roller coaster before. So, this is really exciting for me. So yeah, moments like that make me really happy.
Jack Thorne
And you know, what was also powerful about that was, you know, disabled people in drama, the cliche is they're either the hero or the acerbic sidekick. And what I loved about that was she was the person that was absolutely duped by wealth. You know, she got it. She got it completely wrong, human and so real. And I mean that, you know, and that thing of just kind of like, it's okay that disabled people do the wrong thing sometimes, or get it wrong, or make mistakes. And I mean that, you know, all that stuff is vital narrative in terms of change the world.
Joe Turnbull
I think it's, I think, with reality TV, it's quite an interesting one, isn't it? Because even for non, you know, for the non-disabled people in it, there's nearly always a triumph over tragedy. They nearly always try and pull out some sort of triumph over tragedy thing. So, but then, so then it's like, really problematic, because that's such a trope for disabled people. So, it's like, but I guess for the program makers, it must be really challenging to be like, well, this is us like go to thing is to, like, pull out some area of like,
Jack Thorne
we've got this Blinky blonky piano music, and we've got to play it somewhere.
Joe Turnbull
But I like it that they have to be creative.
Eli Beaton
Yeah, on the next series of Traitors, I'm desperate for one of the Traitors to be a disabled person and just really lean into that villain character. I just think that would be fun,
Joe Turnbull
yes, because then it'll give the makers a hot potato to deal with without it being too Bond villain. Well, we're coming nicely to an end. I suppose it would be nice to finish with a question to both of you, really, whether there's anything on the horizon, either that you're working on, or that, you know of, that you're really looking forward to, sort of on screen or elsewhere.
Jack Thorne
No, not really, you know, like, you know, I'm looking forward to the disabled villain on traitors. That's what I'm looking forward to and hope it comes soon.
Eli Beaton
Yeah, yeah. I'm just looking forward to seeing throughout the industry more of those really small penny drop moments, because they all really accumulate to make something very rich. So yeah, just excited to keep moving this work forward.
Jack Thorne
Ruth Madeley is going to be the lead in an apple film. I think it's an apple film. Ruth is a film star. I've known Ruth for a very long time, and she is a film star, so seeing her as a film star will be a beautiful thing.
Joe Turnbull
Absolutely. Yeah, thanks both. Well, I just want to say thank you both for joining us on the Disability and... podcast and being so generous with your time, and thank you both for all the work that you're doing to push and cajole the industry in ways it may or may not want to go, but I think it's great, you know, I think, yeah, we're in awe of the work that you both do. So, thank you.
Eli & Jack
Thank you very much.
Outro
Thank you for listening. We do hope you've enjoyed this episode of disability and further episodes of Disability and... can be found through the Disability Arts Online website at disabilityarts.online, please join us next month for our next podca