EastEnders star Rose Ayling-Ellis has shared her frustrations over the BBC soap's approach to deaf representation.
The actress, who has been playing the role of Frankie Lewis since 2020, gave the Alternative MacTaggart Lecture at this year's Edinburgh International TV Festival, where she opened up about some of the challenges she is faced with as a deaf person in the entertainment industry.
Ayling-Ellis explained how she is "almost always working with scripts that are written by hearing people", which can be "frustrating" as it means she is often "playing a deaf character that is either written as a hearing person, or as a deaf stereotype".
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While she added that she is "grateful" for the role and praised the soap for making "every day accessible" for her by always ensuring she has an interpreter, creating deaf awareness videos, and their attempts to set up BSL classes, the Strictly Come Dancing winner admits that scripts are often "not right".
"They will write my characters who are in a room with a big group of people arguing with each other, following everything that is being said and even repeating things back to them.
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"Or they will write my character as lipreading someone from impossibly far away – like I have a superpower, which is not realistic at all!"
Ayling-Ellis also revealed that she has "asked countless times for a deaf consultant to be brought in to work with the writing teams" but "due to the speed of the working style and a high turnover over of staff, the importance of consultants is often forgotten".
The actress does, however, add that small changes are being made: "They have asked me to come into the writing room and share my experiences as a deaf woman to help make sure their writing is realistic."
"This isn’t meant as a criticism of the show in question," she continued. "It is something that happens across the board and needs to be accepted as a problem by the whole industry."
Digital Spy reached out to the BBC for comment and a BBC spokesperson issued the following statement: "Rose delivered an incredibly powerful and important Alternative MacTaggart. We are committed to taking action and removing the barriers faced by deaf and disabled people across all of our productions."
EastEnders airs on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays at 7.30pm on BBC One, with some episodes airing on BBC Two during summer sporting events. The show also streams on BBC iPlayer.
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