Geoff Brown, passed away on 27 July 2011, a wonderful man who did so much at the very beginning of Stagetext’s existence to get theatre captioning off the ground in the UK as well as remaining a loyal and ardent audience member throughout his life. He was also heavily involved with so many other organisations which aim to improve the lives of deaf, deafened and hard of hearing people like Deafness Support Network, TAG and NADP and, with Geoff on board, all of these organisations achieved great things. We will all miss him very much.
Geoff Brown in his own words:
“Before I became deaf, virtually overnight at the age of seventeen, I was a regular theatregoer. My mother and I frequently visited one or other of the Liverpool theatres mostly for musicals and Shakespeare. I came to love the theatre and felt the loss of access very deeply indeed.
“Because I grew up in a hearing world I knew nobody who used sign language and hearing aids were no use to me. So even with hearing aid loops and sign language interpreters I was still cut off from the theatre. Over the years, I tried several ways of overcoming this, such as reading the script in advance, but none of them is really satisfactory.
“Now that captioned performances are increasingly available, that sense of frustration I used to feel because I was not able to access the theatre with my family and friends is becoming a thing of the past.”
