(crowd clamoring)
(Upbeat rock music)
- [Bryony] The film is called "Then Barbara Met Alan".
- A drama about capturing
the passing of the Disability Discrimination Act.
- [Protestor] We want what they've got!
- That only happened in 1995.
That's really not that long ago.
And people are really shocked when they hear that.
But not only that, it's the story of Alan and Barbara.
It's an incredible love story.
- [Jack] It's joyful and angry.
We want to challenge the very essence
of how you see disability.
- It's punk, it's rock and roll,
climbing on top of police vans, bullhorn in hand,
shouting for rights.
You just wanna watch this just because it's just great.
Change has happened because we forced people
to look at us in a different way!
- Yeah! - Yeah!
- And we all did it!
A hundred thousand people refused pity and fought for rights!
- [Crowd] Yeah!
- [Bryony] The unique thing about this production
is behind the camera, and in front of the camera,
hiring as many disabled crew and cast as we possibly can.
- "Nothing About Us Without Us" is taken,
it's from the Anti-Apartheid Movement, in South Africa.
Telling your own story,
it's not having your story told to you by other people,
framing it in a way that doesn't offend.
Because things just stay the same
if the same people are always telling the stories.
- "Nothing About Us Without Us",
my interpretation is don't invite us to the table,
we have to make the table with you.
- [Ruth] It can't just be two disabled leads.
It has to be disabled SAs.
It has to be disabled people
in the production office, behind camera.
Every department should have
a really strong understanding of disability.
Things change that way.
- And it's been challenging, I'm not gonna lie.
There isn't enough senior talent out there.
We're finding loads of brilliant junior staff coming through
which is brilliant,
but what's happening is that people with more experience
haven't been necessarily given the support that they need
and they're leaving our industry.
- [Molly] There's a lot of barriers, a lot of the roles,
need you to drive,
and that's not possible
for a lot of disabled people, including myself.
- It can be quite difficult to openly share
if you've got a disability that kind of affects
the way you work 'cause there is a lot of stigma
still attached to it.
- [Crew] And action!
- So part of what we are doing is also saying,
"There is amazing talent out there.
They just need to be nurtured
and encouraged and supported."
And that's what we are trying to do.
- Totally didn't read.
It was the moment that worried me,
'cause I thought he didn't know who he was.
- One of the key focuses of my life
is trying to get disabled representation on TV.
And I've tried to tell disabled stories whenever I could.
- [Arthur] I am not gonna turn and stand and clap.
- [Ruth] Look, you don't have to stand and clap.
- [Arthur] It's a shitty compromise,
and no one will thank you for it.
- I feel really grateful that I've been able to go back
on this journey of seeing how the fight was fought.
I think it's been a really informative process,
being able to meet Barbara and Alan.
And to see the real people
who made this happen has been...
I hate the word inspirational,
but it's been impactful and intimidating as well,
erm, the responsibility of bringing this to life.
- Everyone that's here knows that they own this show.
Authorship is genuinely shared.
There's no one going,
"This is the way we're gonna tell this story."
It's gonna be like, "Let's tell this story together."
- This was a real life event,
the passing of the Disability Discrimination Act
which saw tens and hundreds of thousands of disabled people
protesting on the street for their rights.
I feel really privileged to be part of this.
But there's a huge amount that it didn't achieve in 1995,
and the fight kept on going,
and the fight keeps on going now.
- Think I love you.
Come on then, you're supposed to say it back now.
- Let's take down the Telethon.
(siren wailing)
- Holy shit!
(protestors chanting)
- Our directors, we have Bruce Goodison,
who is a very prolific director,
and Amit Sharma, who's worked with disabled artists for
20 years.
- They go on "Action".
- Amit can show me things,
like the last scene, for instance.
Nadeem, who's a deaf actor,
I'd place him in a different part, so he couldn't see.
So Amit would say, "It's better if Nadeem is over here,
'cause then he could see everyone's mouth
and he could see his interpreter."
So it's things like that that are super important
so that we get it right.
- [Nadeem] My boys! My boys!
(both laughing)
- We've both kind of found a good rhythm
of kind of going this is perhaps
a more comfortable area for me,
and this is a perhaps a more comfortable area for him.
That has then transferred itself
to the cast and to the crew.
We're the yin and yang of this production. (laughs)
- It's that representation thing, isn't it?
When you see people where you wanna be
and you know it's possible.
- No, no, no. Don't!
- Exclusive to behind the scenes.
I sent a lovely message to Ruth yesterday, saying,
"What a wonderful job she's doing."
She sent the lovely message back
but ended it with the most snarkiest of comment, which was,
"I could have done it without you."
- I meant to say, "I couldn't have done today without you."
- But she said, "I could have done it without you."
- And I put "I could have," instead.
Yeah, why are you here?
I made it perfectly clear.
- [All] Civil rights!
We want what you've got!
Civil rights!
We want what you've got!
- [Crew] Action!
- [Arthur] What do we want?
- [Crowd] Civil rights!
- [Arthur] When do we want it?
- [Crowd] Now!
- What do we want?
- [Crowd] Civil rights!
- When do we want it?
- [Crowd] Now!
- We're trying to cultivate a new community
and a new way of working.
It's not gonna change overnight,
and we've made some mistakes
and we are gonna learn from them,
but they're all principles that hopefully other people
can take forward and we can take forward.
- The great thing about this production
is that there's so much in it.
There's drama, there's romance,
there's emotion, there's trauma,
there's so many different things,
and every single disabled actor on this production
is pulling it out the bag.
If they can do this, they can do any role.
And we will change people's perceptions
of what disabled artists can do.