Milton Keynes Theatre.
Stantonbury theatre
Photos
I also took photos while I was visiting the theatres I have annotated these. See appendix one.
Linda Harvey
As a class we had a visitor called Linda Harvey. Linda was born disabled and is constricted to a wheelchair. Linda talked to us about many aspects of disability and her experience of it, she then allowed us to voice our queries and she tried to answer them for us. We then wrote about what we had learnt.
I then gathered secondary information.
Secondary information
Left out
I looked at an article called left out composed from a survey in investigating accessibility, by a charity called scope. It gave information about other peoples views and their encounters with accessibility.
Disabled century
Disabled century was a video I watched. It showed disabled people talking about their life’s things they’d had to deal with, their childhood and even how they are treated now. It talked about before and after the wars up to the 20th century, it also talked about issues like the disability discrimination act which was passed in 1995.
Other data I collected is data from Milton Keynes Theatre,
Access guide
This is more or less self explanatory. It is written down evidence of Milton Keynes theatres policies and facilities concerning access. See appendix 2 to view access guide.
The concerned public as well as charities are constantly fighting for universal access to everywhere.
Due to people voicing their disgust and anger at how disabled people have been treated over the last 100 years, things are changing
Access audits
I witnessed first hand the difficulties of using a wheel chair in a public building
It was extremely difficult to get in and around Stantonbury Theatre. This is also baked up by the overall score stantobnury gained compared to Milton Keynes, Milton kenes had a much higher score and I found it much pleasurable to walk round I, where as statonbury theatre had 54 as a score so it was possible to get in and around in a wheelchair but not easy and not at all pleasurable. The ‘left out’ article also found difficulties like mine.
Left out
left out gave me something to compare my experiences to as they also went around completing access audits on certain buildings it also gave a wider range of general information such as when the disability discrimination act was passed. It also helped by telling us how the attitude of the public might be like the fact that sometimes staff were rude and disrespectful which we might not have looked for if we had not read the article. The purpose of the scope article is to let people become aware of access problems by showing them the results of their surveys. Linda Harvey also told us about her experiences with disability.
Linda Harvey
Linda Harvey believes that the world is getting better regarding access. She has had problem before with access on numerous occasions the worst probably being going on holiday. Up until the discrimination act of 1995 the disabled world was perceived from a medical point of view, disabled people were locked away, separated from society and undermined, now the world is changing to a social model, ramps are being installed, as the scope article say small steps like large print menus are being taken into account . Linda Harvey also supports this when she told us about her child hood being sent to institutions and being separated from her family till she was 16 but now she has her own car which has been altered so she can drive it and she is very independent. Mk theatre is also trying to be universal by having signed and described performances. Linda Harvey says disabled children are just the same as anybody else they still misbehave and such like so why should they be locked away just because they are different.
Photos
The photos I have taken show that Milton Keynes theatre has not just said that it is fully accessible like the holiday house Linda Harvey went to that turned out the opposite but that their action towards accessibility has worked and you can fully access the theatre even though you can’t be as spontaneous as you like.
Disabled century
Disabled century also told of the time before the discrimination act and how the children and even adults were sent away and couldn’t get jobs.
Conclusion
Milton Keynes theatre is much more accessible than statonbury theatre. Measures have been made to ensure, Milton Keynes theatre is open to everyone. For Stantonbury to improve I think that better ramps and doors should be included. That the bar is lowered and that it is easier to get to ad that there is a suitable box office for everyone to reach.
Evaluation
I came across one difficulty in my investigation. As the theatres were closed we could not access the auditorium; however this was overcame by the fact that in Stantonbury we were able to evaluate the seating possibilities from the doorway and in MK theatre we were given a access guide and told that all you have to do is ring prior to going to the performance and they will sort out any needs that you might have. I think that all my sources were useful in the way that they helped me to understand the way disabled people were treated and the problems off everyday life they have to deal with I believe that my access audit were reliable because I witnessed it first hand plus I used a lot of different criteria, Linda Harvey’s I believe was useful but not as reliable because it was only her experiences although her experiences did have strong links with the other data we looked at.
The end
