EastEnders and Strictly star Rose Ayling-Ellis has aired her frustrations over her battle to make sure TV shows properly represent deaf people.
Rose has revealed she’s often found herself stepping in when what was written in scripts didn’t make sense for her characters.
Rose’s script troubles
The actress explains she would often spot problems when she read through scripts.
“I’d often receive a script that it is not quite right,” she says
She explained: “They will write my character in a room with a big group of people arguing with each other and she is following everything that is being said and even repeating things back to them.
“Or my character is lipreading someone from impossibly far away – like I have a superpower, which is not realistic at all!” she added.
The problem was that the scripts weren’t being vetted by someone who understood the challenges the deaf community faces.
“I am playing a deaf character that is either written as a hearing person, or as a deaf stereotype.”
Extra work for Rose
Rose felt she’s had to step in and correct the issues.
“Even though I am not paid to do the extra work on top of my job, I try to fix the problem on set,” she says.
“A lot of the time people are very supportive and make changes based on my advice.”
However, Rose’s amendments often got lost in the process due to production practices.
She explains that the video editor cutting scenes together would often be working from the original script, not realising the changes she had made.
Making a difference
Rose admits she was conflicted by pushing for what she knew was right.
“I ended up feeling torn,” says the actress.
“Torn between representing the deaf community and telling our story but wanting to have a career with good working relationships.”
Strictly pressure
Rose made her comments at at the Edinburgh TV festival.
She was speaking on the subject of the deaf community’s portrayal on TV and her own experiences.
This included a discussion of her time on Strictly Come Dancing, which she won last year.
Rose never watched the show before her appearance.
She found the show’s live on-screen subtitles ran too slowly for her to enjoy it.
“They were leaving me always a step behind and excluded from the jokes,” she says. “Even on iPlayer the subtitles had not been corrected.”
Role model role
The actress describes her Strictly experience as “magical and beautiful”.
However, she admits she felt pressured by the responsibility of suddenly being “the poster girl for the deaf community”.
But Rose adds: “It’s fantastic for younger generations to have someone to be able to look up to, which is something I never had.”
Read more: Rose Ayling-Ellis makes confession about Giovanni Pernice as she talks Strictly
EastEnders usually airs Monday to Thursday at 7.30pm on BBC One.
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