42nd Street at Sadler’s Wells

For the second theatre trip of the week, I went to see 42nd Street yesterday at the Sadler’s Wells theatre. I couldn’t find any information about their hearing assistance capabilities on the accessibility page on their website, but according to SOLT they have a Sennheiser infrared system. I did try emailing their “feedback” address to ask for more details, and to suggest they add it to their website, but I never got a response.

As it wasn’t clear in advance exactly what style of infrared receiver they provide, I arrived with my trusty over-ear headphones. I also brought a carrying case for my hearing aids for earbuds if I needed to swap them for earbuds, or to use with a stethoscope-style receiver.

Arriving 15 minutes before the performance still gave me time to get hold of an assistance device. I chatted to a member of the front of house staff (a senior house manager) who went and got a receiver for their new radio-based system. This took about five minutes or so.

The headphone jack on the device is quite a snug fit, so larger connectors won’t work very well (if at all). A linear connector would probably work better than the right-angled one I had. At first, I thought that the orchestra warming up wasn’t being sent to the audio assistance system. When I couldn’t hear the pre-show announcement either, I double-checked the connections and found that the headphone jack wasn’t fully inserted.

The volume dial was quite loose and easy to turn, but being careful and keeping it turned up seemed okay… until people started speaking. At this point, I realised that only the orchestra was being amplified through the hearing assistance device, and not the actors’ voices. In fact, it was almost like there was some kind of “anti-sound” where the voices should be. My wife also confirmed that wearing the headphones was worse than listening live.

I ended up keeping one side of the headphones off for the first half, in order to have a chance of making out some of the dialogue. Fortunately the details of the plot were not particularly intricate, and I could mostly follow along. I could also enjoy the spectacular dancing, which was very much worth it!

When it came to the interval, I headed to the ground floor to find someone to talk to about this. From my own experiences in the past, I suspected the sound mix to the Sennheiser broadcast wasn’t correctly including everything it should have been. This should hopefully be something the sound techs could check and fix quite easily.

Almost immediately I ran into the same person who got the receiver for me in the first place. I explained the problem, and my wife confirmed, and the staff member went off to talk to someone about it. Unfortunately, when she returned, she said there was nothing that could be done. Specifically, she told us that the sound tech told her that the microphones were not set up to capture voices for the hearing assistance system.

If true, this would mean requiring two separate mics for everything: one set for the auditorium speakers and the other for the hearing assistance. This seems like it would be incredibly inefficient and unnecessarily expensive. A more logical configuration would be to have the Sennheiser as an output from the main mixing desk just like the auditorium speakers, using exactly the same sources.

As a result of this conversation, I felt like accessibility wasn’t important to them and that they weren’t going to even try to fix it, rather than it not being feasible. I returned the assistance device and muddled through the second half as best as I could. I didn’t follow everything, but understood enough to get the gist.

I was left with a sense of frustration and disappointment, which slightly marred the overall experience. It’s unfortunate, as show itself was fantastic and I’d highly recommend it. The dancing (especially from Nicole-Lily Baisden) was incredible, and Sam Lips had a particularly beautiful voice.

Theatres: please test your hearing assistance setup regularly. Make it a part of your regular sound checks! The main reason for these systems is to amplify the actors’ voices so that members of the audience with hearing challenges can follow along. When that doesn’t happen, even the technically best system doesn’t provide any value.