Focus Birmingham

By Vidar Hjardeng

At last Sunday’s matinee the Wolverhampton Grand laid on a special audio description service for a group of children (and their families) from the National Blind Children’s Society. In my capacity as one of the charity’s trustees I had the great pleasure of joining them all for a fun-packed afternoon to enjoy this perennial rags-to-riches favourite.

The theatre’s resident describer, Anne Hornsby, along with Access and Marketing Manager, Janine Graeme and NBCS Events Manager, Sally Freeman and her colleague Hazel Russell, warmly welcomed the VIPs in the theatre foyer before dividing the group into 2, and while one lot was taken behind the scenes for the pre-show touch tour, the others went off for some refreshments and to listen to some children’s audio books provided by the theatre for 20 minutes or so, until it was their turn to go on stage.

For many it was their first experience of a touch tour and the children really made the most of it as they were allowed to try on some of the outlandish hats and wigs worn by the Ugly Sisters – much to the amusement of their Mums and Dads! In addition to getting a hands-on feel for some of the costumes, we were all shown a number of the key props, notably Cinderella’s pumpkin-shaped coach which in a spectacular end to the first half of the show, carried her off to the ball flying through the air, drawn by the amazing Pegasus.

When everyone was back in the coffee area people were given their all important headsets with a quick lesson in how they worked, before being taken down to the auditorium to take their seats – at the front of the stalls – to listen to Anne delivering the scene setting notes. These contained details of the set, who played which character and their costumes. Despite this being Anne’s 4th description of the show, she made as spontaneous and fresh as if it was the first time she’d ever done it – clearly enjoying it as she encouraged us all to join in the time-honoured ritual panto banter of ‘He’s behind you!!’ etc.

The indominatable Krankies and Stefan Dennis from Neighbours, led an outstanding cast and everyone in the NBCS party was delighted when the charity got a special mention from Baron Hard-up and Buttons (alias the Krankies) which was a great finale to a terrific afternoon.

The next audio-described show at the Grand is the cult musical, The Rocky Horror Show, on the evening of Friday, 26 February and information on tickets (including possible discounts), headsets and Touch Tour, can be obtained from the box office on 01902 429212.