★★★★
From Northern Irish touring company, Expecting is a new play exploring the experiences unique to couples where one partner is deaf and the other is hearing.
We follow Shauna and Robbie as they navigate the challenges of pregnancy and parenthood, alongside the additional barriers that Shauna faces as a deaf woman.
The show includes creatively integrated BSL and captions and is a fantastic example of integrated accessibility. It was also a lovely touch that the programme featured the fingerspelling alphabet in both BSL and ISL too.
Both actors brought their characters to life with warmth and personality. Beautiful hand drawn projections also aid the storytelling.
Whilst being a light and engaging piece, the show also highlights some of the ongoing discrimination faced by the deaf community. The writer likens it to a papercut, small at first, but “imagine getting that papercut every single day.”
It was particularly disappointing, but important, to see the casual ableism of members of the medical profession highlighted: a doctor refusing Shauna to use a video app to aid communication in their appointments, an audiologist spoiling the precious moments following the birth of baby Aisling with a callous comment. Why is this still happening?
Expecting is a thoughtful snapshot of a couple moving into the next phase of their relationship and I hope it will enjoy a future life after it’s short run at Edinburgh Deaf Festival so that a wider audience can see how to do a show with fantastic integrated accessibility that also tells an important story!
Review by Laura Crow
