EXCLUSIVE: The only agents in the UK to run a disabled-led access team are contacting the heads of production at every TV drama indie to bang the drum on behalf of access coordinators.
The Office actor Julie Fernandez and Sara Johnson have been in post two-and-a-half years now at Casarotto Ramsay & Associates, which reps the likes of Steve McQueen and Stephen Frears, and have recently felt their frustration at low industry take-up of access coordinators boil over.
Fernandez and Johnson train and upskill access coordinators to work on TV shoots and help with access issues for disabled crew and actors, aiding a disabled community that makes up an estimated 20% of the UK population. Yet Johnson and Fernandez, who started a consultancy around the time of Jack Thorne’s blistering MacTaggart address about disability before moving to Casarotto, say their research has found that fewer than 20% of TV productions have worked with access coordinators.
The pair are now sending out a one-page briefing to all heads of production in the UK’s storied TV drama industry along with broadcasters.
The briefing is headed “Disabled freelancers are in crisis, and we need your help.” “The downturn in commissioning is taking hold,” it reads. “Access coordinators need more productions to bring them on board. Despite great work, disability targets are still unmet.”
According to the briefing, it costs around £1,500 ($2,032) to hire an access coordinator for three days, which makes up around 0.3% of the average budget of a show.
“There is an Orwellian situation in play for disabled freelancers and the disabled community in the UK, all of which have an effect on our industry” Johnson, a former Fox commissioner, told Deadline. “The commissioning downturn and slashed budgets are being cited as an excuse for not hiring access coordinators. Even before the downturn the uptake has been glacial if you look across all genres.”
Johnson urged producers to “put access coordinators in every crew list,” which would support them on and off screen. She said the majority of people the Casarotto-trained access coordinators work with are neurodivergent or have non-visible disabilities.
Johnson and Fernandez have worked with 24 access coordinators. Fernandez, who played Brenda in the original UK Office, is herself an access coordinator. Credits for their access coordinators include Disney+ series Shardlake, the BBC’s Silent Witness and the upcoming The Rapture starring Ruth Madeley. We spoke with the pair when we profiled the agents paving the way for the next generation of disabled talent in early 2024.
Diversity research has found that disabled people are severely under-represented in the UK TV industry. Improvements have been slow and incremental. Adolescence co-creator Thorne and others run the TV Access Project, which campaigns for improved access for disabled talent.
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