I was recently invited along to an accessible showing of a performance called The Boat and the Blue, which with its live music by Sinfonia Viva orchestra has won an award for the ‘Best Family Event’ at the Family Arts Festival in 2016.  It’s a storytelling adventure with live music, games and visuals and by…

It was such a surreal moment. The heat of the lights, the wires threatening to tangle my feet, the gaze from the singer as he altered his microphone so I could see his lips. As my smile met his I began to sign as he sang.  There’s no denying, it was the hardest gig I’ve…

It was early this year that a good friend of mine and fellow actress, Donna Mullings, came over to my house with a favour to ask. She had a video audition to send off to a casting director and she needed it filmed urgently.  Armed with only an iPhone, laptop and floor lamp we shot…

I’ve been attending the festival Deaffest at Wolverhampton for many years now. This year was its 12th festival and boy has it come a long way since it first launched.  Based on the theme “Discovery” this years festival promised to showcase undiscovered talent from around the globe and it brought over several high profile performers…

Last month the first national signing choir competition took place in Nottingham. Organised by Simon Astill of Harmoneyes, there were four junior choirs and ten senior groups that had travelled across the country to compete.  As one of three judges I was really looking forward to seeing so many sign song enthusiasts come together. The…

When I sat my GCSE’s some fifteen years ago, I remember struggling to pass my French exam. The hearing impaired unit at the mainstream school I attended didn’t approve of me taking a French GCSE (probably due to low expectations) so I wasn’t given any support. Instead my class teacher gave me extra work to…

Last week I was fortunate enough to be invited to review a sign language interpreted performance of Hansel and Gretl. And not any old Hansel and Gretl show. Oh no. It was an opera.  I admit when I first realised it was an opera I wasn’t very enthusiastic. I have never been to the opera.…

I was sat in the school minibus, gleefully chatting and excited to be going on a trip when my friend beside me turned round to the girl sitting behind me and shouted at her.   “That’s an awful thing to say!” My friend exclaimed. It was then relayed to me in childlike terms that this…

When I was 18 I experienced a massive drop in my hearing. I’d gone from having a severe loss to a profound one but the drop was so sudden it was hard to deal with at first. I’d changed from being someone who wore hearing aids when I felt like it to a person that…