What is it like to go deaf and then gain back your hearing? On this episode, I speak to Sophie Woolley.

Sophie is a writer, performer and theatre maker.  We have been friends for a while and I have learned a lot about Deaf culture and from her personal journey and one as a creative.

We have a meandering chat about her creative journey, how felt she had to write about her story of going deaf and then gaining hearing again via a cochlear implant. We recorded the podcast while Sophie is in Taiwan. She chats a little on her experience there and Taiwan’s COVID management. 

This is a long conversation between friends discussing the complexities of Sophie’s experience. I was particularly intrigued by her thinking on what it might mean to be a cyborg and being augmented and being part of both Deaf culture and hearing culture.  I am still thinking about her comment about captioning AI being her friend and how we can often simply criticise AI in a way we would not critique a human. (But also there’s no need to anthropomorphize AI either).

Links: Sophie’s website is here. Disability rights drama, Then Barbara Met Alan.

Image credit: Justin Munitz.

Listen below or wherever you get podcasts.

PODCAST INFO

• Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3gJTSuo

• Spotify: https://sptfy.com/benyeoh

• Anchor: https://anchor.fm/benjamin-yeoh

Sophie Woolley, Transcript (only lightly edited)

Ben Yeoh (01:30): Hey everyone. I'm excited to be talking to Sophie Woolley. Sophie is a brilliant writer, performer and theater maker. Sophie, welcome. 

Sophie Woolley (01:41): Thank you. Thank you, Ben and thanks for calling me brilliant. You're brilliant as well. We've known each other a long while now.

Ben Yeoh (01:50): Quite a long while, and now across geographies, time, countries. One thing I'm really interested in is that you are really knowledgeable about hearing culture and also deaf culture. But to some degree you knew deaf culture first. I was wondering what it was like finding out about aspects of hearing culture or hearing culture sort of rediscovered after being so involved in deaf culture? 

Sophie Woolley (02:23): What was it like rediscovering hearing culture after being immersed in deaf culture? Yeah. I'm going to unpick the question a bit. [ ]

Sophie Woolley (02:54): So yes, just to unpick the question a bit. I grew up hearing. So, I come from a deaf family and our hereditary deafness is such that we got hearing and from adolescents we go deaf and we become profoundly deaf. So, it's quite a bit a strong deafness gene that runs back through the generations and I think most people who are in my family, married hearing people but the deaf genes are winning and so I grew up hearing and my mum was deaf and my youngest sister started going deaf before me. It was always a big mixture, so I was very immersed in human culture and the hospital decided I would not go deaf and my sister was going deaf, they picked it up. But with me, it was a happening bit later. So, I always had him in mind that I was obviously the hearing one.

Sophie Woolley (04:14): Like I said, I did hear people's stuff. I was also aware of deaf culture and the deaf rights movement and the disability rights movement. So, you might've seen that Jack Thorne and Genevieve Bart drama that was on last night on BBC, which I haven't watched it. Well, it’s about the disability rights movement, and that was all going on and my mum was involved in that when I was a kid. And then, I wasn't expecting to go deaf, when people go deaf, all of them, if you know an elderly deaf relative or someone who's starting to go deaf, they will always sort of be the last to admit him. 

Sophie Woolley (05:11): So, I was doing that classic thing, even though I was coming from a deaf family and people were saying, has your hearing got worse, Sophie? I was going, oh no, no. Just saying how it is because the hospital said that I'm not going deaf. So, I went through all the different levels of deafness and so deaf culture is not mono culture, it's this lots of different types of medical deficits, but also with that in that deaf people of different cultures and requirements and access requirements. But what I found helped me because I was always doing well as a writer and performer; what helped me get to the next level professionally was when I kind of made the full adaptation, started using access to work and using sign language interpreters and panel typists. You have a code; you have the stenographers they code in instantaneous verbatim caption. So, I had those in, in meetings and when I was in rehearsals or sometimes in auditions, I had sign language interpreters. 

Sophie Woolley (06:37): So, although we use sign language and speech at home, I wasn't fluent in sign language because I was more immersed in hearing culture, went off in to the world doing that. So, I was more becoming fluent in sign language when I started using sign language interpreters. So, you know like when you learn a language and you can read more than you can speak it or more than you can write it. So, I sometimes feel like that, like I can watch my mates, making their BSL videos on Facebook, chatting about that. Like I call it deaf web. So, when people are just making comments in video in BSL, I can understand what they're saying, but I'm not doing that myself.

Ben Yeoh (07:36): Wow. Really interesting. What do you think people who really only know about hearing culture, perhaps most misunderstand about deaf culture or maybe something you'd like to explain to them? I hadn't fully appreciated for instance, or the many levels of a deaf culture and it varies by geography as well as label and things like that. Nor, I think until I came across it well, I guess quite a few years ago, I really did not appreciate how rich and kind of amazing and poetic it is with this huge, very rich culture, but I'd be interested in your reflections on what I'm hearing culture really misses, I guess a lot of your friends would know, but I guess a lot of people haven't come across a deaf culture very much.

Sophie Woolley (08:39): What does hearing culture not notice about it? 

Ben Yeoh (08:42): Yeah. And what do they miss, or maybe don't appreciate? So, something which you would love hearing culture people to understand about deaf culture or maybe show them if you want to find out more, this is something you'd be really interested or excited to learn.

Sophie Woolley (09:06): Yeah. So, it’s a really good question, sometimes when someone asks me that question, my knee jerk reaction is to go, all right, this is one chance to have a bit of a moan but that's not what you're asking you come by as well. 

Ben Yeoh (09:27): You can moan as well if you like. 

Sophie Woolley (09:30): Yeah. That'd be a very podcasty, good album one. I guess people who get into deaf world would always have a moment, like a light bulb moment when they discover something and it makes them want to get to know more deaf people or learn to sign or something. And there's nothing to beat when you walk into a room and everyone's signing. If you get the chance to walk into a room where everyone's signing and you don't know the language then yeah. So, I guess if you go and see a play that’s in sign language and where the audience is mostly deaf. It's quite something; it's another language that's going on in different countries. And, in Britain, the deaf art scene and the deaf filmmaking scenes, the deaf TVs scenes, and it's really strong. And so, there's lots of opportunities where you could go. I'm trying not to say the words, another world, like it's alien or something, 

Ben Yeoh (11:23): Because it's our world. 

Sophie Woolley (11:35): So, what people often ask me on the main front and the standard things that people will always say to me when they find out I'm deaf and they might be able to talk to me about sign languages. So, it's international, right? So, everyone always says, the language is international and it's not. It's not only English people that say that. So English speaking people think that English is international but there were also people who their first language isn't English, but who also asked me this question, because I've been around the world and, and then they'll go. It’s an international question, but sign language has its people in France speak French and people in Taiwan. I speak Taiwan sign language. So, it's an international question and then the next question that people ask me is not a question, it's a complaint. So, people say that that's so stupid, why isn't it? It should be international; it should be an international language. And there is some more information that you can give to people about all of that, but it's once they've started complaining about how stupid sign languages, because it is not international, I don't feel like telling them.

Sophie Woolley (13:18): Because I'm speaking to you actually from Taiwan. I’m in Taiwan at the moment, I'm not in London where I normally live. So, I thought I want to try and meet some deaf people in Taiwan. And I went to and Googled deaf people in Taiwan, and there's a cafe about half an hour away that’s run by deaf people. So, I went there knowing that if I go in there and start signing, I will be able to have a chat with them a bit easier than people speaking Mandarin or Taiwanese or Hakko. And because I can do some hand shapes and I know some signs from other countries and so I went in to buy a coffee and I said I'm deaf and then I signed, I've got a cochlear implant. And, these positions, they recognized so they came outside because it's COVID restrictions. And at the time I went to visit that café, you have to go into the cafe, order the coffee and wait outside because it's a really small coffee shop. 

Sophie Woolley (14:49): So, they had to come and outside them, the deaf couple or two people and we had a basic chat and we were doing some typing on the phone, on Google translate. And so, we were able to have a chat a bit faster than if we were having two languages, we didn't know. So, there is an international sign language that gets used. Sign language is not international.

Ben Yeoh (15:32): It’s one of those really, really annoying questions. Well, maybe some impressions of Taiwan as you’re there would be really fascinating because I think you mainly grew up in London, like around maybe Halston, Northwest London, actually, not too far from where I am, but I think maybe first born in Glasgow a little bit of time in South Africa and obviously you being around the world, I'd be interested in your impressions on how it's like in Taiwan at the moment. Obviously, we still have the Pandemic happening, but maybe either some of that everyday life or deaf culture, even food, transport, shopping, anything you kind of think, wow, this is really different about Taiwan, or I really like this; this is something we should bring to London or vice versa. I’d be interested in your impression. 

Sophie Woolley (16:34): Yeah. It's so the first thing you're struck with when you come to Taiwan is the COVID theater, the pandemic theater is different. And when I say theater time, I mean like security theater. But it's not for show. It's proper. In many ways, it's like they're handling the pandemic in the way I wanted it to be handled. But that makes it quite difficult to get into the country. So, when I arrived, I had to do two weeks in quarantine. When you arrive at the airport, there's lots of people in hazmat suits and you have to wait and get COVID test and then go in a special taxi straight to the hotel. And in, in the hotel, the hotel reception staff are wearing their PPE. Oh, I missed a bit before I got in the taxi, the taxi driver, he's wearing PPE as well, sprays the whole of me, disinfects me and spays all of my luggage and the windows are down. So proper. I'm trying to remember if there is anything else that's done proper about coming into the country? There's really this digital system, so I have to register health form and then every day I'm texted by the CECC. So, the Command Center for Epidemic Control, I might have said the acronym words wrong, but they text me a message and I have to reply saying I'm well and the CECC says, thank you, we care about you. So, there's that automatic system and then police officer also calls as well and say eventually you get out of quarantine and there's at the moment is a full mask man mandate say everyone's wearing masks. 

Sophie Woolley (19:18): Sometimes people say, oh, it's lots of restrictions in Taiwan, but really it feels like a layer of kind of distress is removed because you don't have to think about it. Everyone wears a mask and everyone just gets on with it. So, there's no awkwardness either way. So, you wear a mask and you go to a restaurant and take you off. And there's no COVID. I haven't looked at the stats, but people aren't dying and there's no COVID but they have an issue with I think 45% of older people over a certain age haven't been vaccinated. So, their hesitancies with the pensioners. So, the long quarantine periods, I think Taiwan might be looking at Hong Kong where there's also a lot of people who didn't get vaccinated and now Hong Kong has got a very bad pandemic going on. So, it just feels like a kind of pandemic. 

Ben Yeoh (20:48): And has that changed how you viewed the arts and culture or restaurants and food? Or you give me the impression that everyone’s just getting on with it so it's as a normal part of life. But I'd be interested in how different Taiwanese culture or food seems to you to versus your experience in London.

Sophie Woolley (21:15): Yeah, the culture and the food. So, when I first came here last year, I came out of quarantine. And they did have an outbreak, they got the Alpha variant, the British one. And so, all of the arts closed, so I didn't see very much. So haven't seen very much, but I've seen some incredible visual arts and mainly me educating myself about the food. So, I go to the night market and also, I live near the night market. It's open opening the day as well. And that's really, really dazzling in different ways in the day and the night. So, there's the fish stores, the meats stores, then vegetable stores and then stores that are full of the different kinds of tofu, dog food and then stores that I think are full of many types of tripe.

Ben Yeoh (22:36): Wow.

Sophie Woolley (22:37):  I don't want to eat tripe, but I'd like to ask them questions, but I don't want to eat it but sometimes you do order something that you think is just a vegetable soup or have bits of tripod. So, you just sort of order the wrong thing so you did get to experience some tripe accidentally and then there’s these jellies and puddings. Like when I was in quarantine and I ordered some puddings and the consistency of food is very different and the puddings and cakes are not as sugary. So, at first, I was really unused to the food so I thought, well, I don't know if I'm ever going to get to like them food, but now I'm getting to like crave the different foods. And I really liked the red bean paste stuff and the congees and the jelly is made of different plants. 

Sophie Woolley (23:56): So instead of being made of animal the jelly is made of things like the other day I had some made of figs. The jelly is made of rubbing fig seed each together, and it's like jelly, it's cold. 

Ben Yeoh (24:14): It's very, very different textures, the food around Taiwan. It's really, really fascinating. So, I have a question here. I know none of us like to be pigeonholed, particularly in terms of our creative work. But you did a whole show ‘Augmented’ kind of about sort of deafness or finding out about that. I'd be interested in your process for that. And I think you've spoken also about a little bit of the moments when your cochlear implant was first turned on and, and how that all happens. So, I was wondering whether you'd like to comment on that and also your process and thinking behind creating your show ‘Augmented’ and using sort of your own life as kind of source material for theater making. 

Sophie Woolley (25:15): Like you said, the show is based on my past experience. So, I went totally deaf over 20 years and I thought I was going to just be deaf for the rest of my life. So, I knew about cochlear implants and I thought they weren't very good. I just had a lot of prejudices and fears about them. So, the original idea for the doing a show about someone who becomes what I call it, a deaf cyborg came from the moment I realized I was a deaf cyborg and the world had to know.

Sophie Woolley (26:06): And so, the process started in 2013 when I was switched on and in the hospital. But it took me a while because it's autobiographical and to find them the language for telling this story, because the three painful three audiences that I was thinking of when I was trying to write the show. So, there's hearing painful and deaf people who are not implanted and then there was people who are implanted or people that I thought might be like me and my it's life-changing. So, I didn't want to be an improv pusher, but I just saw there's just not anything culture about that's realistic about implants. It's always, oh, as a kind of there's a lot of old-fashioned dramas about it and saying, no it's controversial and showing people being unhappy with their implant. And it was, there was a lot of joy about it. But when I thought about making a show that that showed joy about implants also felt ashamed. I thought this would be quite impressive to a lot of deaf people who can't implant or don't need to implant. And implant. then I realized that that was a confidential conflict of the show. So, it's a show about me, my progress as a writer, by journeys as a writer. I know my journeys of a former employee takes out me to tell this story because I'm pulled in different directions by my duties to the different audiences.

Sophie Woolley (28:35): So, it's like the hearing audience is easy because they understand the standard story, you go deaf, you want to go hearing again. But really, I haven't gone to hearing again because in the story of augmented, I tell the story. I can't tell the story of going hearing until I tell this story of going deaf. And it's a story that show Sophie doesn't really want to tell the story of going deaf because It's a traumatic journey and she wants to present herself as a brighter hero as do I. I don't want to be a pitiable character. I'm proud of my deafness.

Sophie Woolley (29:29): It's very complicated. So, in the play, it's about I work with Sarah Dickinson, a dramaturg and she's brilliant and a brilliant director called Rachel Bagshaw and who implicitly understood whereas coming from, because she also has a quiet disability. And so, she feels free for transformation so they helped me and encouraged me to dig into the complexity of the story rather than make it but someone gets switched on and they cry and then everything's brilliant because I when I’m in a show you see, when I got switched on, my deaf family were there and they were subverting, it was kind of family chaos and my mom's hearing dog was farting and make everyone laugh. And so just to explain to my mum, she was deaf and she has a hearing dog and that's a working dog for deaf people. And so, it wasn't a kind of romantic moving switch on. But it was a really serious moment for me. And so, this faith in that moment, that way to shine that made it cheesy but it wasn’t. 

Ben Yeoh (31:10): I mean, one thing I love about the workers, it's really complex and shows that these things are not like our fairytale myths. They are story about being human, which has all of these complexities about it. One thing we've talked about maybe on the little bit more of the positive, surprising side was when you picked up incidental sound again and I think I had not appreciated as a hearing person, how incidental sound infuses everything. And also in your show, you talk about toileting and how toileting is a visceral thing, but actually sound is very much associated with it. And so that also is something I hadn't appreciated.

Sophie Woolley (32:07): Can I interrupt you? Because this is a deaf I sometimes I have to stop someone if I didn't understand a word or I think I heard a word and I think that can't be right. And did you say toileting? 

Ben Yeoh (32:21): Yes.

Sophie Woolley (32:23): When I'm toileting? 

Ben Yeoh (32:25): Well, the sound of the sound of urination. The sound of urination, which was just an incredible moment just in the show and for me, I hadn't really appreciated what we have as sort of hearing audience. And this was also around an incidental sound and hearing about that. So, I was just interested in, I guess the thing about incidental sound coming back and how that was for you. 

Sophie Woolley (33:06): Yeah. This is why I'm glad you pick out those details because they are details. And that's why it's so important for deaf writers and deafened people and deaf people who have had implants to write these stories, because then you get the specifics and the specifics are just as important as the general drama that people see from afar that you you've got these really moving, funny sound details that really, really give people more empathy than a kind of generalization that someone's got from a consultant and then got hearing writer to write it. 

Sophie Woolley (33:56):  So, the bit about the shock of when I went deaf and still must've still been in denial when I was profoundly to totally deaf and then one day realizing, wow, I can't, I can't hear myself, I can't hear that anymore. So that's gone, so I think things disappear and that’s quite philosophical, isn't it? Not being able to hear what you're doing. So, the detail is really important. 

Ben Yeoh (34:42): And I guess on that philosophical level there, I detect a sort of certain fear amongst many people about this idea of being augmented or cyborg. I guess we've got the idea that we can have artificial limbs, people I think are more peace about that but when it's to do with things like hearing or maybe brain or maybe other sorts of things, and I thought that was one thing really great about your story is that, at the heart of it, I thought, well, we're still really human, we might have other bits. I'm sure sort of when glasses came along, people thought, oh, that's an extra bit that we put on our body. And maybe that's the way that some of the human body is going. It might have bits which are not which are not as biological, but I don't think that really makes us any less human than I thought on that level is something that the story really resonated with me. I felt that was one of the underlying messages. Is that something you think about in, in general with, with where this has got to? 

Sophie Woolley (36:01): Yeah, and also, I think I need to write another show or film about it because I want to dig deeper into the duality of that. So yes, when I got switched on, I realized I hadn't been switched on as a Frankenstein monster. I had a sense of horror. The other people who have that stigma of seeing someone with the thing on the side of their head. I felt that horror in advance and having someone, it's very invasive, like having someone digging into my skull and such and then realizing that it gave me access to parts of myself and my identity that I hadn't been doing for a long time. And people close to me saw transformation in me. I find it difficult to talk about and that's why I had to write about it because I'm trying not to say oppressive things. Yeah, it's really because I am from the deaf community and I self-edit. So that's why I have to write things that are really hard to say.

Sophie Woolley (37:43): And the other thing I want to mention about the duality as well. We're human. Just because I’ve got this freakish thing in me. But also, immediately when I got switched on, I had all of that yeah, oh she's back, the old me. Also, there's a new me, I'm a cyborg.  So, things sounded very strange at first and science fiction and I loved all that and I miss all that liminal period of weird sound. But I also feel very appreciative of AI and machines and the sound of machines. And I'm not a transhumanist, but I wonder if there's kind of side of future humanism, and it's not the dodgy version.

Sophie Woolley (39:07): There's a book that I want to get that I think I can only order by the post that's just being published by a Caviar as it's a computational philosopher. And so, I saw a friend post about it, when people put picture of the book, they like so I looked up that writer and he's talking about other forms of intelligence. So, I looked up an essay done and he was critiquing humanism and saying, why is AI so bad? Why are we so arrogant to just dismiss that? And there is something in that I think, not having read his book yet, but I saw, I didn't explore that so well because what I find happens is people have this knee jerk response to that? It's like it's really an evil force and there are really, really bad things happening in computers and AI because they've been developed by non-diverse teams and things but it’s not what people have been knee jerked about, I'll be on a zoom and I'll say I'm just going to put the automated captions on so that I've got a transcript and people sometimes switch them on and stop criticizing their AI captions. And that's kind of allowed because the AI is not human, that I'm a cyborg and the AI is my friend.

Sophie Woolley (41:11): Like people wouldn't criticize my sign language interpreter. Some of them didn't always behave well with the interpreter, but that's understandable. They emphasize the ethics of that, but yeah, I've got a cup on about 

Ben Yeoh (41:33): Yeah, I think that's fascinating. And I think this gives you such brilliant insights because of these dualities, understanding deaf culture, understanding hearing culture, understanding AI and robotics, so I I'd be really interested in hearing you write more about these topics. I guess, with this duality, what I'm hearing though, is that you still feel part of deaf community and deaf culture as well as part of hearing you haven't lost that in being able to hear or do you feel also a little bit of a sense of loss because when we gain one thing you lose another and you talked about that liminal state where you have a set of sounds,  would you only have in that state and you pass out of it you lose something I'm interested. is that a tension in the duality or do you find you sit in a balance that no, you can accept being part of both cultures, like they're a little bit antagonistic sometimes because they don't understand that other half as well.  

Sophie Woolley (42:51): It's really been a beautiful journey. So, the play focuses on some of the tension. So, you know, my hearing and definitely if their response to me suddenly changing and them having to adapt to the new me. So, there's a sort of sense of loss maybe when I get back that over time. I've learned that it's not a loss, so I'm I have more time. So, I can do more work for them for the deaf group and rather than like be focused so much on myself because I used to have to spend a huge amount of time because I was a freelancer going from one job to the other. Insourcing access workers or being very tired from using access workers or lip reading. So now I have the hearing privileges, is not having that fatigue or having more time and also in real time, being able to have more instant access and hearing privilege in the world, the anger about that doesn't go away. The anger about the injustice against deaf me who didn't have this, doesn't go away.

Sophie Woolley (45:53): I'm not going around feeling angry all the time, but it's in the core. So, I can't walk away in theory. So, I can do thing that me and my sister used to talk about well, hearing people who can sign, they can still just walk away. Like if you're deaf and this is something you can't walk away from being deaf. But like, I sort kind of do that. I could walk away. But I don't think I do; I'm still very much involved in in deaf things as well as hearing things and there are things I do behind the scenes. I really want to spend more time being a cyborg. 

Ben Yeoh (46:03): I see that. I don't know if you see it the same, but that you are a bridge between these cultures and therefore you can advocate more effectively for deaf culture. Until I came close to people who had accessibility needs, and I think I don't even still fully appreciate it because I don't have those needs myself, about how difficult its cyborg. is. And there's a whole different set of these accessibility needs that people who don't have them who are in the majority simply ignore, not necessarily out of bad intent, but just from ignorance. And I think the more we have kind of these bridging things and exploring that, is a positive. 

Ben Yeoh (47:01): What made you think about being a cyborg or would you like to explore more about the AI thinking or the kind of machine thinking? Is it this idea that we could treat AI perhaps a little bit more like we consider humanity or what part of that duality is most interesting to you at the moment? 

Sophie Woolley (39:07): No, I don't know if we have to anthropomorphize the robots, but maybe we can learn from them. But I’m going to do some reading and thinking. I also want to get my external processor upgraded and I’m interested to see what will happen with the sound mapping of that? That's a very technical thing. So, whether my sound map board change, I have more control over it in real time or will the company be controlling the sound world. It's amazing, it makes you appreciate how many parallel universes that are because each time I get a new map, I think this is a great version to hear the world in, you know, you tweet it in the hospital. And then sometimes I come away and I have to go back and go no that's wrong, it's too Bassy. And but then I get this, the version I've got at the moment I'm really happy with.

Sophie Woolley (48:45): There are still things that are difficult to hear. So, there's a lot of technical things that I want to do that's more of a personal thing to work on the hearing. So, there's things that I think I'll never be able to do than I can do. So recently I was listening to some hip hop. So, I, I don't listen to as much music as I want to because I'm a writer. If I listening to music which Bluetooth directs to my brain. I get too distracted, but I thought I'd never be able to understand hip hop lyrics with my implant, but now it's becoming clearer.

Ben Yeoh (49:36): That's amazing how you can change or how the sound world changes with your sound map and you can sort of upgrade it or change it over time. Has the sound of your own voice change that much for you over time and these different processing’s and how do you feel about the sound of your own voice? Do you have a changing relationship with it? I guess there's the useful things, right? Of your voice or how you can voice them in terms of acting and things and changing voice but has it changed over time and you kind of interested in that? 

Sophie Woolley (50:21): Yeah, that's another thing I want to do about the cyborg thing is, I want to do some more acting and I think for that to happen, I am going to be writing my own parts and I don't know if it'll be a cyborg story, but I it might have to be. But my voice has changed in terms of when I was getting deaf, I was doing lots of different voices in plays, different accents and I was working with Jemma Fairly, a brilliant director. And so, I was really into doing that and then I was beginning to be cost is deaf characters on TV and radio. Since I got my implant, I haven't been getting so much of that work. My voice had changed after I got the implants, I didn't work on it but it changed because I was able to monitor my speech. 

Sophie Woolley (51:41): So, I'm learning Mandarin in Taiwan and that just feels incredible to me. While I'm learning, the teacher has got a mask on, so I can't lip read her. So, this isn't the case for all people with implants, but for me I can follow speech without lip reading. And it's not easy learning Mandarin or hearing it when it's muffled, you know, how everyone's deaf in a pandemic because all the speech is muffled by the mask. My voice is different when I'm speaking Mandarin. I wish there was more time to know the languages and I wonder if I can use that in my work. I hope someone is making a film where they need a Londoner who speaks a little bit of Mandarin.

 

Ben Yeoh (52:54): Yeah, that'd be great. So maybe the last couple of questions is do you have any advice for people, either advice from how you lived your life or perhaps advice for people thinking about having implants or those interested in deaf culture. So yeah, any thoughts or advice that you might have?

Sophie Woolley (53:21): Is there any advice about deafness or getting implants?

 Ben Yeoh (53:25) Yeah, definitely. Or just general life advice. It doesn't have to be something specific, but final thoughts. 

Sophie Woolley (53:32): Yahir really think I'm specific. It's really important with deafness. So, I want you to say more specific things in our chat. One of the things is that all deaf people are different. I grew up in a family where we are deaf and we sign and speak and sign language has been very empowering for us and so I have cochlear implants. One thing that's been happening in the last six months, and I'm not sure why is it, people have in working context, people have been asking me if I want them to book me a sign language interpreter. I haven't used sign language interpreters since 2012. Yeah, that was the last time I used them at work when I was working on a play for the culture, ‘The Olympiad’. And then I got the info and I found out that I just had to use one access last year implant, but what's been happening in the last six months is maybe the people in the pandemic have been like seeing a lot of access on the public zooms and things and so the question has changed. So instead of asking me what access do you prefer people have been asking, do you want me to procure sign language interpreter? Because I come from, signing, speaking background, I can take it. But I just think for there's a lot of deaf people who go deaf later in life and they don't sign and they it's going to be quite difficult for them to be asked that question. So, the question to ask people is do you have any access requirements? Is there anything I can book?  Just something more general in that context, because people have all different specific requirements.

Ben Yeoh (55:57): So that's a good question to know. And overall, I mean, that's probably the kind of way we should be asking sort of everyone, do you have accessibility needs? Can I help you with something rather than sort of pigeonhole people into a particular way?

Sophie Woolley (56:13): Yahtzee was a producer that I worked with who is really good on the access front and I think he has a sign off after his name. Some people have pronouns and things like that. I mean, he has the thing after his name on the emails saying if there's anything access wise, that I can organize, let me know. I can't remember the wording. So that's on the sign off and that's so useful. I think for a lot of people who might be have to pluck up the courage to ask, because it's difficult to know when everything's online, how, how it's going to land sometimes.  So, a lot of them, the labor that people have when they're becoming deaf is the fear of asking for what they need. Fear of looking weak or something. So, the, the advice I'd give to someone who's going deaf or, or just going into them the working, working life is you have to sort of take the bull by the horns and assertive and ask for what you need. But I think get your foot in the door first and then be organized about what you want, because you're going to need X, Y, and Z actually some point. And if you ask for it late, then that's not a collaborative approach to your access. So, you'd sort of be organized it about it. The style I used to do is organize all of my own. I think other people organize it for people now.

Sophie Woolley (58:17):  Access to work is more difficult to get. I don't use it anymore. I understand that it's more difficult to get. So, if people are unemployed, they should be doing some of the work to get access to work for their workers. I feel like I'm straying a bit from my remit which is as a being a writer or an actor. 

Ben Yeoh (58:47): No, I don't think that strays from your remit at all. I think that's really useful actually advice as its pretty practical and any advice or thoughts for creatives, maybe reflecting on your own personal creative and a writer performer journey. 

Sophie Woolley (59:10): Yeah. I make my own shows, applied my own path and I wasn't working for the big companies at first. I was just getting up in pubs and clubs and teach myself. So, if you don't have training, then that's quite a good way to develop your own voice. If I go back and do it again, I would learn some craft and structure a bit earlier on because that's expected and it also speeds up the writing process and

Ben Yeoh (01:00:01): Great. And what future shows or shows where we can see some of your work. Cause I think that the Deaf Faker series is still available on YouTube. Is that right where we can see some of your work? Any particular work you're proud of that, we could look at and future projects that you're interested in working in, which might be coming up?

Sophie Woolley (01:00:25): Yeah, you can. I've been writing between the pandemic, writing for EastEnders and I'm proud of the episode that was last done in October. I think that was the 12th of October or something like that. So, if you go on my website, sopheywolley.com, there's a link to the EastEnders episodes and I also start as a villain in a short film called ‘Veneer’ by Jean Sinclair, who is a brilliant deaf actress and writer. He also worked with me on ‘Augmented’ so that's on BSL zone. You’ll probably get to that from my website as well. And yeah, I've got YouTube channel I did a kind of short experimental film with Dudley Reese and Told by An Idiot in 2021, I think, or 2020. Oh, dear it's sort of blur and that was called ‘Best in Lockdown’ and it was quite strange to make that because I was using my technology and the director was in another room, so we did it all very safely. So, he gave me instructions and questions through a gadget that just beamed sound to my brain. That's called Best in Knockdown. And the other advice away to give, going back to your other question. 

Ben Yeoh (01:02:14): Yeah. Please do.

 Sophie Woolley (01:02:18): Don't be hard on yourself and I have to tell myself. 

Ben Yeoh (01:02:24): Yeah. I guess be kind, don't be too hard. Be kind to yourself. I remember you telling me quite important to try to never get repetitive strain injury. So, these other little practical things that's again, don't be too hard on yourself. 

Sophie Woolley (01:02:47): Yeah. Yeah. When my play ‘Augmented’ when it did nine shows and then the tour had just stopped because it was March, 2020 and I was like oh I couldn't work at the time because we couldn't go out and I did the whole workaholism thing. I know, but I didn't get RSI. So, I've got my desk go set up really well now these days. 

Ben Yeoh (01:03:22): Excellent. So, any other final thoughts you'd like to share? Advice or something I haven't covered that you think actually, I quite like to chat about that. 

Sophie Woolley (01:03:37): Yeah. I think go to you mingles if you can. That if we were still on the advice thing, they’re really good 

Ben Yeoh (01:03:52): Yeah, meeting other people. I feel I've learned so much from your work and just following what you've been doing over time. So, I find it's really fascinating and important. And so, thank you for being brilliant.

Sophie Woolley (01:04:11): Yeah, thank you. It's really good to hear that all the way over in Taiwan. Thank you. I hope I get to see your shows when I when I get back to London soon. Yeah. 

Ben Yeoh (01:04:27): Well, thank you very much Sophie. If you appreciate the show, please like and subscribe as it helps others find the podcast.