𝘈𝘱𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘹 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦: 4 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘴🕒
Belittled, dehumanised and pushed out.
That is how deaf actor Tianah Hodding felt when she was denied a copy of the access script by producers as a reasonable adjustment for Stranger Things: The First Shadow.
She told VoiceBox that she had given seven days’ notice for the requirements and believes that they broke the law.
“It was disheartening that my voice was not heard,” said Tianah, who has been deaf from birth.
“I was on the verge of begging and they still turned me away. I was shocked and angry at first then devastated after we watched the show.
“Although I didn’t want to give in to the ignorance, I’ve been sad since knowing that in 2026 we are still be excluded from spaces and the future for deaf children doesn’t feel promising.
“It was also concerning how many people were not aware that the Equality Act 2010 and Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 exists and what it consists of.”
Speaking of that, the Equality Act requires service providers to make reasonable adjustments for disabled people.
Also, section 31A of the 1988 Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, as deaf journalist and author Liam O’Dell explained, “states an accessible copy of a creative work does not infringe copyright if it is made on behalf of a disabled person for personal use, and their disability “prevents the person from enjoying the work to […] the same degree as a person who does not have that disability”.”
Despite being denied the access script, Tianah refused to give in and watched the show anyway.
She said: “Audience members were gasping and responding to the material and to think I wasn’t allowed to access the same thing they were hearing had me emotional as a grown ass woman!! It felt so unfair I honestly wanted to throw a tantrum and throw my dummy (popcorn) out of the pram (on stage), urgh.
“It was so mean for them to still tell me to enjoy the show despite not providing what I had asked, to offer me a refund which is so poor from them and THEN to not be able to offer me an alternative confirmed date which even now they have not done. I felt belittled, dehumanised and pushed out. Shame on them!”
As it stands, theatres and cinemas host captioned performances, the frequency depends on the venue. But they can be very few and far between.
Tianah, based in London, added: “Theatres and cinemas have an obligation as service providers to ensure their audience can access their programming. They have the technical capability to go all the way, but logistically they still have a long way to go.
“Legally, under the UK’s Equality Act, venues must make ‘reasonable adjustments.’ While providing a couple of captioned shows or a handful of headsets satisfies the bare minimum of the law, true equality of access — where deaf people can spontaneously decide to go to the movies on a Friday night with friends — is again, still a long way off.
“For cinemas, captioning a movie is incredibly simple from a technical standpoint.
“Nearly every major film release is delivered to cinemas with a digital subtitle track built right into the file. The cinema literally just has to flip a switch to turn them on.
“For theatres, because it requires hiring a live specialist and altering the set layout, most theatrical productions will only offer one or two captioned performances across an entire multi-week or multi-month run. If you cannot make that specific Wednesday matinee or Thursday evening, you miss the show entirely.
“And that’s the issue itself, if you can’t make one accessible show, you lose out for half of the year. That’s not fair and does not justify equal access?”
Tianah has a petition to ‘end scheduled only captioning’, which has garnered more than 2,000 signatures. This idea will be easier to scale at larger venues and productions as a starting point.
She believes, as a society, we can help non-deaf and hard of hearing people understand the importance of mass captioning by spreading awareness.
Tianah continued: “It’s so important to continue spreading awareness about how accessibility is essential to our everyday lives since one in three of us and more than half of us will turn deaf as a senior citizen.
“Our chances of having deaf children are also fairly high and we need more advocates for our generation, for the society, for our family and friends because we are living amongst them.
“We need to apply pressure to venues, ask about their access programming, about their roadmap for accessibility, question the lack of access, and feedback when it’s doing well or not. Advocate for us if you see a flaw within a system.
“For those who work within venues, workplaces and the industry itself, it really helps having an inside advocate to allow changes to be made.
“Have accessibility features been questioned? Are you not allowing access to be an afterthought? The more collective voices we have, the better the response. The higher the demand, the more captioning programming we will see across theatres and cinemas.”
After reflection, Tianah has two main takeaways.
She said: “Theatres need to know more to understand their duty by law as service providers and how important staff proficiency is in deaf awareness training.
“It also reminded me of how important it is that we see deaf representation in front of house and backstage to ensure inclusivity is well maintained throughout an organisation.”
Head of VoiceBox, Sophie Muller, said: “Firstly, I think it’s important to recognise the importance of Tianah sharing her story so honestly.
“To feel belittled and dehumanised and still talk about it to raise awareness is not easy, so hats off to her.
“The way she was treated was wrong. I hope this serves as a lesson for producers to support access requirements in the future. You can have your document privacy, and you can also have an accessible show.”
Stranger Things: The First Shadow has been approached for comment.