Jenny Sealey, director of Graeae Theatre Company, has had a brainwave. Fine producers who don’t employ disabled actors. She’s particularly concerned about the failure of opera directors to hire performers with impaired sight and hearing: ‘There is no diversity whatsoever inside those opera houses. And that is disgusting.’
She wants her new fines siphoned into ‘a training pot so that we can be training deaf and disabled artists.’ Her company, by the way, trains such performers. And that’s fair enough. Nick your rivals’ lunch and eat it yourself. Standard practice in most industries.
But the Sealy Code may not prove entirely workable. First of all, fines need to be policed and enforced. And a system of appeals will be required as well. Lawyers will rub their hands as paranoia spreads across the West End and into the regions.
Producers will start to assemble dossiers of evidence demonstrating their commitment to the disability quota.
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