Blindness on stage: ‘Until disabled people can tell their own stories, we’ll always be stereotypes’

From unreadable scripts to cripping up', a career in theatre with a visual impairment can be a challenge. Chloe Clarke and Douglas Walker share their successes and hopes for the future

What is it like to navigate not only a stage but the entire theatre industry as a blind person? From the practicalities of performing to harmful preconceptions about the roles visually impaired actors can play - and how blindness itself is portrayed - there is a lot to deal with.

Actors Chloe Clarke and Douglas Walker recognise scenarios such as audition scripts printed in a font size that is too small - but they also tell me about the good practice they have experienced. Speaking over Zoom from her home in Cardiff, her guide dog resting by her feet, Clarke explains how technology helps. The 38-year-old performer, who is also an audio description consultant, uses bone-conduction headphones in rehearsals to be line-fed by a colleague, rather than struggling to sight read. She also tells me enthusiastically how her iPad is useful, in terms of enlarging text and using the camera to zoom in on action happening in the room that I can't otherwise see".