Thank You BBC For This Beautiful TV Gem About Deaf Characters

For the past couple of weeks I’ve been watching Reunion on BBC TV, and I can honestly say it’s just pure TV gold and I hope that there’s either a second series commissioned or more like it. Reunion is about a man who is Deaf and has been released from prison for murder, though he can be seen communicating verbally from time to time he mainly speaks using British Sign Language (BSL). 

The cast includes a stellar line up of acting talent such as Anne-Marie Duff (Shameless), Lara Peake (How to Have Sex), Eddie Marsan (V for Vendetta, The Disappearance of Alice Creed), Sophie Lee Stone (Shetland), Olivia Gray (Eastenders, Halo) and Rose-Ayling Lee (Eastenders, Strictly Come Dancing).

When I began watching this I typically missed the first episode so I wasn’t quite aware of what was going on, story wise, but what fascinated me was that chunks of the dialogue were communicated via Sign Language. One of the first things that went through my mind, other than how gripping I found the series, was that things are coming some way since CODA back in 2021.

Storytelling wise, the script is just fantastic because parts of the dialogue isn’t spoken verbally you’re encouraged to pay even closer attention to the facial expressions, hand gestures and body language. There were points where I was looking at the screen and almost ignoring the subtitles on the screen because I was just completely engrossed in looking at how the characters were communicating and looking at each other. I actually found myself picking up on the way the characters were relating to each other, how they were expressing themselves.

In some ways I found that I was their non-verbal communication was speaking more volumes had they been talking verbally.

According to some sources it’s estimated that 55% is from body language, 38% is from the tone of your voice and only 7% is through spoken words. In some ways I find that as interesting as I find it ironic as it goes back to that saying ‘actions speak louder than words’. This is also why in social care environment they do tell you that your tone of voice, facial expressions and body language have to match the words.

Now if you think that I’ve possibly gone off-tangent here then rest be assured that I haven’t. Though being Deaf isn’t a Learning Disability it is a Disability, hence why it’s always a good idea that your body language matches what you saying. If you work in Care and talk to someone who’s got a Learning Disability who’s Deaf you’ve it’s all got to match but it’s also the same with some who doesn’t have a Learning Disability but is Deaf; they’re both both going to be interpreting the same.

I for one have always been fascinated by Sign Language for the basic fact that it’s communication but without actually talking. And I’ve occasionally thought the same thing that some of us have also secretly had the odd naughty thought; learning how to say the F-word,  B-word, S-word and T-word. Come on now, don’t deny it, a great many of us have thought about it at one point or another, the amusement part being that you can swear like a navy or do the Sign Language version of the V-finger gesture and the one person getting it wouldn’t have a clue what you’re saying. Hey they might think you look weird but who cares.

But on a serious note now I have always had a big fascination with Sign Language and I suppose it goes back to a young age. As with all of us we’ve grown up knowing only our own national language yet when we heard a different spoken dialect it just blew our minds. It was still something that was coming out of open mouths but you’d never heard anything like it before. I can remember going on a family holiday to Wales and we went into a pub and suddenly my dad started speaking in a completely different language, just like that. And up until then I’d only ever heard him speak in English.

And it’s the exact same thing with Sign Language, and i was younger than 10 years old when i first saw it. I’d never seen anything like it before and what got me when I saw it for the first time it was the first time seeing a language that wasn’t spoken verbally.

One of my goals in life has been to learn it, preferably before I turn 50 and I’m still as fascinated by it now as I was when I was 9