Audio Description (AD) in theatre is additional commentary about staging, costumes, characters, and movements, which is often heard by visually-impaired audiences alongside the performance. It can be used to provide access to visual media and may just be a unique site for examining the meanings of vision. What can we learn about vision if we explore how it is being reimagined by theatre audio describers and visually-impaired theatre-goers?
This research project informed my undergraduate dissertation in the Department of Social Anthropology at Cambridge University. It involved three months of ethnographic fieldwork in 2015 where I researched with audio describers in the West End and in Edinburgh. I am hugely indebted to Audio Description Association UK, Audio Description Association Scotland, and all the individual audio describers who contributed to this project, without whom this research would not have been possible.
