'This issue gets relegated out': Bafta-winning writer says TV has 'failed' disabled people and claims disability is 'the forgotten diversity'
A screenwriter says TV has ‘failed’ disabled people ‘utterly and totally’, describing disability as ‘the forgotten diversity’.
Jack Thorne, who has won five Baftas, said the disabled were likely to be seen as ‘inspirational crips’ and portrayed as either ‘heroes or victims’.
The 42-year-old, who wrote hit play Harry Potter And The Cursed Child, added: ‘Sometimes they’re funny, an acerbic best friend, mostly they’re just sorrowful.’
The screenwriter criticised the way disabled actors were overlooked for parts even when the role was a character with a disability
Giving the James MacTaggart Memorial Lecture at this year’s Edinburgh TV Festival, he said the ‘TV world is stacked against the telling of disabled stories with disabled talent’ and that this had to change.
Mr Thorne, who adapted His Dark Materials for TV, was disabled for about 15 years after being diagnosed at the age of 20 with cholinergic urticarial, which makes sufferers allergic to their own body heat.
The screenwriter criticised the way disabled actors were overlooked for parts even when the role was a character with a disability. He said: ‘TV has failed disabled people. Utterly and totally. How do we change it?’ He added: ‘Gender, race, sexuality, all rightly get discussed at length. Disability gets relegated out.’
Mr Thorne said the ‘conversation on disability representation’ was ‘nowhere near as advanced’ as that for ethnic diversity, following the focus on the issue as a result of the Black Lives Matter movement.
He also pointed to the way disabled actress Liz Carr was treated during her time on hit BBC1 drama Silent Witness, where she said she had finally been given a bigger story to get her to sign a new deal, only for the storyline subsequently be cut.
He said she also had to fight for a romantic life for her character.
Mr Thorne said due to his own experience he had tried to ‘further the disabled cause’ but added ‘in the most part I’ve failed’.
Help, written by Jack Thorne, is set in a fictional Liverpool care home, tells the moving story of the relationship between a young care home worker and a patient , whose lives are changed forever by the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in spring 2020
He admitted he had been ‘complicit’ in decisions where actors took roles they should not have.
The writer said: ‘Disabled stories need to be told and when they are told they need to be told with disabled people. It’s an obvious thing to say: it isn’t happening.’
He added that while 20 per cent of the population were disabled only 8.2 per cent of those on screen are, with only 3.6 per cent of top TV executives in this group.
Mr Thorne also launched a searing attack on the way disabled people had been treated during the pandemic,
He said disabled people had been ‘denied treatment’ and were seen as ‘more acceptable to die’ because of conditions that had nothing to do with Covid-19. He pointed to friends being told they would not be ventilated, adding their lives were not seen as ‘vital’.
Mr Thorne said the last year had been about ‘cowardice’ and the ignoring of the ‘disabled experience’ and ignoring of the ‘unnecessary deaths of tens of thousands’.