The Ethics of Recasting: Audio Mistrust in The Archers

I have long been an avid listener of BBC Radio 4's epic farming soap opera The Archers. As I said on my post about 'Blindness and/on the Radio', what I love about spoken word radio is the way that it is automatically accessible to blind people. The Archers has to have audio description built into its plot lines so that characters' speech also fills in the details we cannot see: like a film's audio description soundtrack, The Archers' dialogue tells us who characters are with, what they are doing and where they are.
Just as (I imagine) sighted viewers recognise the characters in their favourite television soaps by their appearance, I recognise Archers characters by the sound of their voice. But recently, there has been a spate of re-castings on The Archers which leave me confused, disorientated and more than a little dissatisfied. Whilst television recastings are incredibly rare (Lucy in Neighbours, Miss Ellie in Dallas, and Sam Mitchell in Eastenders are the only examples I can think of in the last 40 years or so), at least four major Archers characters (Clarrie, Hayley, Tony and now Tom) have been recast in recent years.
I know there are always practical reasons for recasting and it is not a decision producers take lightly. But the expectation that listeners will quickly and easily accept a new audio incarnation of a beloved and long-standing character paradoxically undermines the importance of voice to the very medium which depends on it. Helen's effusive repetition of Tom's name is not enough to convince me that this interloper is in fact Tom Archer. Radio listeners - like blind people - know how to identify people by voice. This is a skill built on the assumption that people are who they sound like: radio drama can only function successfully if producers respect this assumption. When the sacred link between voice and character is broken by an unexplained voice change, the listener's trust in audio falters and The Archers loses some of its magic.

Blind Spot at Two

Happy 2nd Birthday Blind Spot Blog

When I started Blind Spot two years ago, I thought I would use it to chronicle my research project on blindness in French culture as well as my experiences as a partially blind academic. In my first post I promised to write about my research findings and I renewed that promise on the blog's first birthday. In fact when I look back at the 80 or so posts I have written since Blind Spot started, only a handful of them are overtly about my academic work. (See, for example, 'Reading in Detail'; 'Therese-Adele Husson'; 'Flaubert and the Medical Model of Disability'; 'The Taboo of Blindness' and 'Touching the Book'.) What started out as a research blog has gradually become a collection of writings on blindness, disability and the tyranny of the normal. My most popular posts, (which appear at the bottom of this page) are about Children in Need, audio description, the unwitting dangers of ableist society and blindness in popular film and fiction. My favourite posts are about my relationship with BBC Radio 4, the joy of public transport and learning braille. What all 80 posts tell me is that this blog has helped me both claim and celebrate my blindness, it has made me into a disability activist and it has introduced me to many new people and experiences.

I may not mention my research very often but it is still the driving force behind this blog. My thoughts on blindness in the modern world are always informed by the work I am doing on nineteenth-century French fiction (and increasingly the reverse is also true). Indeed the most interesting of the 40 or so novels featuring blindness I have worked on so far are the ones which challenge or critique some of the misconceptions about both disability in general and blindness in particular which still haunt modern society.

The figure of the passive blind beggar is a recurrent feature of nineteenth-century French literature. The way that he is often used as a symbol of failure or tragedy finds a sinister echo in contemporary images of blindness such as the offensive advert I wrote about last year. Such depictions insidiously emphasise that blindness is a disaster, a tragedy, almost a fate worse than death. But my research shows that not all nineteenth-century French writers were happy to accept this predominant stereotype. One such example is a 1892 primary school textbook by Vessiot which includes a short story in which two schoolgirls discover the hitherto unsuspected intelligence of their local blind beggar. Like another story which appeared in 1887, 'L'Aveugle' by Alphonse de Launay, this seemingly innocent tale in fact encourages a whole generation to rethink their preconceived notions of blindness by teaching them that appearances can be deceptive. One of the things I will argue in Visions of Blindness in French Fiction 1789-2013, the book which will eventually come out of my research, is that it is only by understanding how and why the blind were depicted throughout history, whilst also analysing the works which critique such depictions, that we can hope to finally rid society of its pervasive and devastatingly negative view of blindness.

Blindness and/on the Radio

I have already written here about my exciting visit to Salford's Media City to be interviewed by Jenni Murray for BBC Woman's Hour back in September. Yesterday I was lucky enough to be back on the programme, this time talking about women and blindness.

My experience was still wonderful, but it was very different from my first time. Instead of travelling to Salford, staying over in a nice hotel, meeting the other guests and being surrounded by the hustle and bustle of a busy radio studio, I did the interview alone in a small room at Radio Oxford. Once I was connected to Salford, I exchanged a few words with the studio manager to check for sound levels, and then I tried to sit back and relax whilst I was waiting for my turn. The studio very kindly played me radio 4 through my headphones as I waited but I nonetheless had a lot of time to worry about what was going to happen. Despite the soothing effect of my favourite radio station, which has always calmed me in stressful or lonely situations, I had a hard job controlling my nerves and I was pretty relieved when my turn finally came.

As the presenter, Sheila McClennon, introduced our segment and asked me my first question, I suddenly went from being passive listener to active participant. Although I had done this before, I still wasn't prepared for how dizzying it feels being responsible for providing the content of a programme you have been happily listening to only seconds earlier. As the adrenaline started flowing my nervousness was replaced by a mixture of excitement and pride.

It is doubly fitting to be interviewed about blindness on the radio and over the phone. Radio presenters are brilliantly attuned to the non-visual nature of their medium. They build audio description into everything they say without even thinking about it and are always very careful to use interviewees' names each time they address them. This is primarily so that the listeners always know whose voice they are hearing. But it also helps phone interviewees know which questions are being addressed to them. When I described my long-distance intervention to someone yesterday, she immediately wondered how hard it must have been for me to respond to questions without being able to see the faces and reactions of Sheila McClennon and fellow guest, Denise Leigh. I resisted pointing out the irony of her observation. What she actually meant was how difficult it would have been for a fully sighted person. In fact it is incredibly easy for me to respond to questions put to me over the phone because I spend my life talking to people without seeing their faces. Where a sighted person might have noticed a lack of eye contact, I really love being able to talk without worrying about trying to see, or pretending to see, others' reactions. I am an expert at getting all my clues from sound: maybe this is why being interviewed on the radio feels like second nature to me. I went on Woman's Hour to try and explain that blindness is not a tragedy, a lack or a descent into darkness. It is just a different way of being in the world. If some blind people resent their sightlessness it is because we live in an occulocentric world which privileges sight over all the other senses. But it doesn't have to be that way. Anyone involved with radio, as listener, presenter, producer or contributor, already knows that blindness is not something to be feared, resisted or even necessarily cured. Whether we realise it or not, radio is a constant celebration of the power of blindness, a constant reminder that sight is not necessary in order to have a complete and fulfilling sense of the world.

BBC Radio Four

Me and Jenni Murray just after my interview. 

Many thanks to fellow guest and children's book illustrator Sarah McIntyre for taking this photo.

Sarah has written a great account of our Woman's Hour adventure here. 

I have loved BBC Radio 4 all my adult life. We have at least six radios in our house and I increasingly listen via my phone wherever I am. Radio 4 wakes me up every morning and accompanies me on car, train, bus and plane journeys. It has stopped me feeling lonely in hotel rooms from Salford to Salt Lake City and keeps me amused when I am cooking. I even listened to Radio 4 whilst giving birth to my two sons.

Yesterday was quite simply one of the most exciting days of my life. I moved from passive listener to active participant as I was interviewed by the majestic Jenni Murray on Woman's Hour (from 30:30). I was talking about my take on the What I See project and the ways modern society is obsessed with how we look.

It seemed particularly fitting that I was arguing for a rethinking of the hierarchy of the senses via a largely sightless medium. Radio 4 is an essential part of mainstream British culture. And yet its enduring hold over the nation testifies to the fact that sight is not a necessary part of our lived experience. Yesterday I realised that radio journalists and producers build a subtle kind of audio description into everything they do. Places and people are announced as a matter of course. Every time Jenni Murray asked me a question she prefaced it with my name. Her primary reason for doing this was to remind listeners who I was and to differentiate my voice from that of my fellow interviewee Edwina Dunn. But Jenni's technique was crucial to me for another reason. Because I cannot always see enough to know when someone is addressing me, I rely on the kinds of audio prompts which are much more common on the radio than in real life.

The Woman's Hour team: 

Jenni Murray in the centre, and from the left Assistant Producer Jane Worsley, Producer Bernadette McConnell, fellow guest Sarah McIntyre and me. 

There is no doubt that modern society places too much emphasis on the visual. And this has the unpleasant consequence of marginalising the blind and the partially blind. But my experiences yesterday reminded me that anyone who engages with radio - as listener, presenter, producer or technician - already has an intuitive appreciation of the non-sighted world. Anyone who listens to the radio already knows what it is like to be blind: it is not a tragedy, it is just a different way of being.

History of Blindness Conference: Updates and Impact

The International Conference on the History of Blindness and the Blind which took place in Paris in June 2013 made a huge impact on me both professionally and personally. I learnt an immense amount about the history of the blind in various countries and at various times. I met a wonderful selection of interesting, intelligent and accomplished individuals and have already continued a number of conversations started there.

Below I list (in roughly chronological order) blog posts, webpages and recordings related to or inspired by the conference.

 - All the conference presentations are now available, both in English and in French, on the Singer-Polignac Foundation website.

 - My Blind Spot posts 'Guide Dogs for the Blind' and 'Where has (all the) Braille gone?' were directly inspired by the conference.

 - Author Mike Mellor wrote about his role in the conference for the National Braille Press Blog

 - Selina Mills' feature on the conference was broadcast on BBC Radio 4.

 - Heather Tilley's 'Touching the Book' exhibition, which she discussed at the conference, has now opened in London. After I visited the exhibition I wrote a piece for the exhibition blog comparing the British and French approaches to the embossed book.

 - La Ligue Braille have conference reports on their website in French and in Flemish.

 - Selina Mills reports on the growing interest in the history of blindness in the September issue of History Today (p. 7).

 - Conference delegate Dr Brian Miller discusses the conference in Accessible World's Special Program Series (download and listen here).

Where Have All the Disabled People Gone?

I really miss the Paralympics. I used to love turning on the television and seeing all kinds of disabled people doing all kinds of impressive things. Disability was not just the new Normal, it was the new Cool. For those magical two weeks I was so proud to be seen out and about with my white cane. I looked at my non-disabled friends with an odd kind of pity: they suddenly seemed woefully unfashionable because their bodies were just so damn ordinary.

But the nation's enthusiasm for disability seems to have quickly waned. I was really hoping that the popularity of the Paralympics would lead to increased disability visibility on television. But it seems that the media is still obsessed with out-dated notions of the Normal.

Last night I went to see the majestic Francesca Martinez in her new stand-up show 'What the F*** is Normal?'. Inexplicably, I had only heard of Francesca earlier this year when she appeared on BBC Radio 4's 'News Quiz'. I was delighted and amazed to hear someone with a speech impediment on the radio. I instantly liked her witty and subversive take on current affairs. And I was pleased to hear Radio 4 fighting the nation's ingrained prejudices against difference by featuring a disabled comedian in one of its most popular programmes. Of course, my need to comment on this remarkable turn of events demonstrates how unusual it is. We still have a long long way to go before disability stops being marginalised.

If Francesca Martinez is funny enough to appear on the News Quiz (and she is), why have I not seen her on one of the BBC's many panel shows? Last night she suggested that the BBC thinks that she is too frightening to appear on TV. She might scare away the viewers, apparently. Now, what the BBC means by this is not that Francesca herself is frightening (she isn't), but that disability is frightening. And why is disability frightening? Because people do not understand it. And why do people not understand it? Because they have never been exposed to it: most people have never met a physically disabled person, much less had a conversation with them. So, if we follow the BBC's own logic, the only way to get Francesca on TV is to expose more people to disability. And a sure fire way of exposing  more people to disability is to get Francesca on TV.

The Paralympics made disability visible. Now the nation's broadcasters have a responsibility to enhance that visibility. It is only by seeking out disabled comedians, presenters, newscasters and writers that they will help position disability firmly in the mainstream.

Seeing Electricity: Science Fiction or Science Fact?

 It is tempting to believe in the old adage that 'seeing is believing' and that the way the sighted see the world is the best, and only, way of seeing it. That the world is made up only of what we can see of it. This is certainly the approach of most opticians who try and use artificial means such as glasses and contact lenses to mimic the workings of the eye, thus helping the visually impaired to see as well as their perfectly sighted peers.


But what if there are better ways of seeing the world? What if the model offered by the normal human eye is not the most desirable one? Why don't opticians offer us different kinds of sight rather than always striving to replace what we are lacking with an artificial reproduction of it?


 At first this seems like the stuff of science-fiction. In fact in his 1923 novella L'Homme truqué (The Phony Man), French writer Maurice Renard describes what happens when electroscopes are implanted into a blind man's eyes. This operation gives the novel's hero Jean an initially alien, and highly perceptive view of the world. After his operation the first thing he sees is a hideously misshapen monster standing before him. It is only when this monster speaks that he realises that this is in fact his (human) doctor: the pulsating nerves, electrical impulses and brain waves that Jean can see are no less part of the human body than the skin and bones we are used to seeing. They seem alien to Jean because he is not used to looking at the body in this way. But once he becomes accustomed to this new way of seeing, he can relate to the world in a much more detailed way than his normally sighted friends.  He can see electrical impulses inside the human body, electricity flowing far underground, lights shining behind walls or energy fields several miles away. His ability to see through solid materials and across vast distances means that it is impossible to hide anything from him. The concept of secrecy loses all meaning as the plot develops, just as day and night and light and dark lose all signification for him for what we call darkness has no effect on his vision.  As the novel progresses, the reader is obliged to reconsider the very way we think in order to take into account Jean's new way of seeing. Traditional novelistic twists involving concealment, mistaken identity or suspense become impossible in a world where the protagonist can see inside and through people, buildings, the earth.


I read this story a couple of weeks ago and was enchanted to discover that this way of seeing is not limited to science fiction. On this morning's Start the Week, 'The Digital Future' (at 23 minutes), Anab Jain from futurology company Superflux describes exactly the kind of sight Renard evoked in 1923. She is developing a kind of  'prosthetic vision' whereby the blind can have a virus injected into the back of their eyes which would enable them to see electromagnetic spectrums that are not visible to normally sighted people. Apparently, the blind community has not been overly positive about Jain's project. But surely this kind of 'supersight' is the perfect way of rethinking the myths about the predominance of the ocular. I hope Jain's project succeeds. I hope it helps people see in a new way. But most of all I hope it reminds the sighted that their highly prized way of seeing the world is neither as powerful, nor as necessary to human happiness as opticians would like to have us believe.

Dame Judi Dench

I listen to the radio every day. Mostly Radio 4. I almost never read the papers because the print is just too small. I can read newspaper print with my reading glasses (and do so dutifully every time I go to the JR for a check-up) but it is usually just too much of an effort. This morning the first story I heard on the radio was about Judi Dench who has revealed that she is suffering from macular degeneration. The story was billed as 'sad and touching', presumably because Judi Dench is a National Treasure and it is of course upsetting to see someone lose something so precious. (In fact, Judith Wood, a counsellor who works for the Oxfordshire Association for the Blind has described the feelings associated with sight loss as a kind of mourning.)

But the very fact that Dame Judi is in the public eye means that she is in a great position to challenge some of the myths surrounding blindness. Blindness does not have to be seen as something to be 'overcome' or as a barrier to a 'normal' life and yet this is the language of the headlines reporting Judi's news. These predictable headlines are happily at odds with Judi's rather more cheerful account of how she is carrying on with her work. She likes having her scripts read to her by friends and family and loves listening to audio books. I too am finding that not having to worry about seeing has given me more time for listening, touching, smelling, tasting. I don't believe in the myth that says that the blind have super-enhanced senses as compensation for their lack of sight. But I have noticed that non-visual experiences bring me as much pleasure as visual ones do. And yet our occulocentric world almost always assumes that sight is best. I love reading braille in the dark when everyone else is asleep. And I love listening to Radio 4 in every room of the house. Perhaps Dame Judi Dench's positive take on blindness will encourage more people to stop reading and start listening.