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Audio description
About
In order to increase access to the National Theatre for those who are blind or visually impaired, the Access Department employs freelance Audio Describers for each production to describe what is happening onstage during live performances.
People featured in this video include:
Tony McBride, Audio Describer
Simon Russell Beale, Actor
Zoë Wanamaker, Actor
NT Productions featured in this video include:
Much Ado About Nothing (2008) by William Shakespeare. Directed by Nicholas Hytner.
Transcript
Tony McBride: I am an audio describer here at the National. I work freelance, but within the Access Department, as an audio describer, which means I come in and work on various shows making them accessible for blind and visually impaired people.
The way that works in terms of the technology is that I sit with a co-describer in the tech box at the back of the stalls, where the show is normally operated from, and we watch the show live and speak into a microphone and our voices are relayed via the infra-red system.
Simon Russell Beale (as Benedick, onstage during a performance of Much Ado About Nothing): I do spy some marks of love in her.
Tony McBride (sitting in one the Olivier Theatre's control boxes and speaking into a microphone): Benedict hauls himself out of the pool, sodden shirt clinging to his portly belly.
Tony McBride: The describers see a performance at an early stage in the run and we make notes on the visual elements of that performance. We then get given a copy of the DVD of the show and a script so we can sit at home and prepare. We then come in and have what we call a ‘dry run', so we listen to each other's description, the two describers, whilst watching a performance. The next day we note each other on things that have been missed maybe, or over-described, before then delivering it live.
We have normally divided the show up so we are working on one act each, or one half each, so there's only one of us speaking at any one time.
Tony McBride (in Audio Description Box): He turns to gaze at Beatrice, hair plastered to his head and beard dripping. He preens his chest, ambles across her eye line, hips swaying, to lean nonchalantly against the pagoda.
Zoë Wanamaker (as Beatrice): Against my will I am sent to bid you, come into dinner.
Simon Russell Beale (as Benedick): Fair Beatrice I thank you for your pains.
Zoë Wanamaker (as Beatrice): I took no more pains for those thanks than you take pains to thank me. If it had been painful, I would not have come.
Simon Russell Beale (as Benedick): You take pleasure then, in the message?
Zoë Wanamaker (as Beatrice): Yay, just so much as you might take upon a knife's point and choke a jackdaw withal.
Tony McBride (in Audio Description Box): Benedict laughs with an air of uncertainty.
Zoë Wanamaker (as Beatrice): You have no stomach in you.
Tony McBride (in Audio Description Box): He sucks in his stomach with a sheepish grin.
Zoë Wanamaker (as Beatrice): Fair you well.
Tony McBride (in Audio Description Box): She sighs, turns on her heal and marches off.
Simon Russell Beale (as Benedick): Against my will I am sent to bid you, come into dinner.
Tony McBride: Whatever style the performance is directed and performed in, there is the opportunity to reflect that in the sound of the description and quality of the voice.