Reality shows need disabled people to break down barriers

 

I’d never heard of ‘Britain’s Best Home Cook’ – the BBC’s new cookery show with Mary Berry and Claudia Winkerman. So, when I got a call, inviting me to apply for the show in late October, I was delighted. It’s not often one gets headhunted and I was confident I could be an able contender. My confidence was built on the basis that I’d appeared on the BBC before, cooking Lancashire Hotpot and was comfortable in front of the camera. Subsequently I built www.thedisabledchef.com a cooking blog, featuring over 150 recipes which I cook at home. My main USP though in my eyes is the fact I’m confined to a wheelchair because of Multiple Sclerosis. I’ve never let the disease control me. For many years now, I’ve advocated for better awareness, inclusion, choice and opportunity for Disabled people. I’ve raised thousands for charity, been an Olympic torch bearer, produced a disabled fashion show, I even helped set up a work scheme at Loreal, for kids with learning disabilities. I believed if I could get through the auditions, my inclusion in ‘Britain’s Best Home Cook’, would be important in helping to break down barriers for disabled people. I wanted to show us in a positive light. I wasn’t going for the sympathy vote, but to unfurl my skills and abilities, allowing the audience to embrace the challenges we face and to keep believing. All the auditions were filmed, and I seemed to sail through. My pork pie and chilli jam, with a whisper of orange zest, was quickly polished off by the production crew and my Chicken curry with lemon rice for the final audition, cooked in 45 minutes, was a culinary marvel. One of the film crew even said that it was one of the best dishes they’d eaten for the final auditions. I’ve always been confident and engaging when filmed and the auditions were no different. By the end, even the producers were agreeing that the inclusion of disabled people, especially in ‘Reality shows’, was poor and needed to change. I punched the air as though I had won the lottery when the production team left. I was convinced I had done more than enough to get on the show. However, 3 weeks later I received a rejection email. It left me deflated and angry, and I burned inside at my perceived injustice. In hindsight however, I was naïve for even thinking I could have been picked as one of the final contestants. The production team had already let the cat out of the bag saying the kitchen for the final audition and show was not accessible. It meant I missed any ‘cook off’ as I did my final screen test at home, preventing me from mixing with my fellow cooks and showing I could work in a pressurised environment. In-addition I was constantly re-assured that if I was selected for the show adaptions and help if I needed it, would have been provided. Whether these were hollow promises, I’ll never know. But, having watched the show where all the competitors live in a rented house together, which also does not appear to be accessible, I have my doubts. Throw in a carer overnight and a hoist to get you into bed and suddenly the dynamics of the production have changed and it’s not all about recipe books for bed time reading and a glass of chardonnay to send you on your way – some people can’t handle that. Call me a cynic if you want but it seemed like it was easier to overlook me, which left me feeling used, as though I was there just to tick a box in their equality and diversity section. Perhaps, I was just over-reacting and being a sore loser, but having seen 6 episodes of the show, I’m even more confused why I wasn’t in the mix as I’m certain I would have been staking a claim for the throne! It was nice then to have my bile cleansed then by Lee Ridley’s performance under his stage name Lost Voice Guy (LVG), to win Britain’s Got Talent. Lee who has cerebral palsy cannot speak but delivered his stand-up routine, through a voice synthesiser. His performance deserved victory and viewers flocked to him not out of sympathy but because he was refreshing and different. His victory had a deeper meaning though for the producers of Reality shows. It was the rejection of an old and dated format by a public vote, a call for more diversity and an acceptance that disabled people have talent and deserve the same platform as everyone else. The message on LVG’s tee-shirt ‘I was disabled before it was popular’ might be slightly embryonic though. A recent report by Diamond Research, commissioned by the BBC and other major broadcasters showed that people with disabilities make up only 6.5% of on-screen staff and 5.5% of off-screen staff compared to 18% of the population. The figures show we’ve still got a way to go before disability can be embraced and not treated as a circus act. Programmes like the ‘Undateables’ and ‘DIY SOS’, simply demean us and show us reliant on each other and charity, and despite LVG’s win we are still conspicuous in our absence on ‘Reality TV’. Perhaps ‘Gogglebox’, which involves sitting round all day watching TV and was made for someone in a wheelchair, will be one of the first to buck the trend. Maybe I’ll send them my application, maybe I won’t (rejection still hurts), but either way the times are changing for disabled people in the broadcast industry as the barriers to inclusion are slowly dismantled.