To mark Deaf Awareness Week 2025, we’re delighted to announce events and partnerships which celebrate deaf culture and creativity.
The UK’s first deaf-led professional theatre company comes to Exeter
Deafinitely Theatre, led by Paula Garfield who recently received an MBE for outstanding contribution to the arts, will come to Exeter on Tue 15 Jul with the acclaimed play, The Vagina Monologues. Based on writer V’s Vagina Interviews conducted with 200 women all around the world, this collection of funny, lively and emotional monologues represents the untold stories of women in a powerful theatrical experience. With a cast of six deaf actors, it will be presented in British Sign Language with spoken English and captions.
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We’re thrilled to welcome Deafinitely Theatre to Devon. They’re a game-changing company and we’re delighted to welcome bilingual theatre — for deaf and hearing audiences — onto our stage. Partnerships with organisations that have the same inclusive values enable us to share brilliant stories with more people — and that’s exciting.
Kelly Johnson, Exeter Northcott Joint Chief Executive
A partnership with the first Deaf school in England
To celebrate 200 years of the Deaf Academy, we will stage an exciting programme of events celebrating Deaf culture and creativity in 2026. The first event of its kind in the South West, the year of celebration will bring people across Devon and beyond to take part in deaf-led comedy nights, theatre performances, talks, workshops, and a deaf rave.
find out moreWe took our students to the BSL-interpreted Christmas shows at the Northcott and at the Barnfield Theatre and they had a fantastic time. That led to a bigger conversation about how we could work together to offer more opportunities throughout the year. Now we’re planning a whole year of celebratory events and this is just the start of us working together to offer more creative opportunities for deaf people in Devon.
Mark Stocks, Partnership and Community Manager at the Deaf Academy
A commitment to BSL-interpreted, captioned and audio-described performances for every Made by Exeter Northcott show
Having recently returned to producing new productions, we will stage five new shows in the forthcoming year and, for the first time, each production will have captioning available alongside audio-described and BSL-interpreted shows.
This commitment to accessible performances is possible due to our close partnership with Devon’s Complete Communication, part of The Inclusivity Group, headed up by Daryl McMullan and Rhiannon Squance (pictured).
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Photo by Kyle Carter
The Inclusivity Group, which includes Complete Communication and Complete Training, are extremely proud to partner with Exeter Northcott to break down barriers in the arts for deaf, disabled, and neurodivergent people. By providing BSL/English interpreting, captioning, and audio-description and enhancing knowledge through training and consultancy, we’re making theatre truly inclusive, because everyone deserves the chance to experience the power of the arts.
Daryl McMullan, The Inclusivity Group Founder and CEO
These three announcements are just part of our ongoing journey to make our make our theatre as accessible as possible.
Access Performances
We believe everyone should have the opportunity to experience and engage with live theatre. We’re currently seeking sponsors to help us help provide accessible performances and offer tickets for people with access needs. This includes the unique opportunity to sponsor our partnership with The Deaf Academy.
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