Liam O'Dell | Freelance Journalist and Campaigner
957 FOLLOWERS
Liam O'Dell is a freelance journalist specialising in deafness, disability and social media. Alongside writing, Liam produces content for his own YouTube channel and is a public speaker, having moderated panels at Summer in the City, the Almeida Theatre's Shifting Tides festival and the UK Asexuality Conference. Check out his posts now.
Liam O'Dell | Freelance Journalist and Campaigner
8h ago
An 18-month-old girl from Oxfordshire, who was born deaf due to a rare genetic condition, can reportedly “hear unaided” due to a gene therapy infusion – in a scientific development which has sparked fears around the future of Deaf culture, sign languages and the Deaf community. Opal Sandy’s deafness was caused by a condition known ..read more
Liam O'Dell | Freelance Journalist and Campaigner
8h ago
Deaf people watching TV and films are being left feeling excluded as a result of poor captions, a new study has found, with viewers prevented from experiencing immersive phenomena such as suspense. The project, from the University of Sheffield and design studio Paper, had Deaf participants watch captioned versions of films such as Jaws, A ..read more
Liam O'Dell | Freelance Journalist and Campaigner
8h ago
The UK Government has said it provides British Sign Language (BSL) interpretations of its televised press conferences “where possible”, in a shift away from its previous position to make all statements accessible to Deaf signers “as soon as possible”. In November, this website reported that certain Downing Street press conferences will not be immediately available ..read more
Liam O'Dell | Freelance Journalist and Campaigner
8h ago
90 per cent of British Sign Language (BSL) signers and 82 per cent of deaf people faced “negative attitudes and behaviours” in the last 12 months, a new survey from the Royal National Institute for Deaf people (RNID) has revealed. Two-thirds (66 per cent) of deaf people, BSL signers and those with hearing loss combined ..read more
Liam O'Dell | Freelance Journalist and Campaigner
3d ago
90 per cent of British Sign Language (BSL) signers and 82 per cent of deaf people faced “negative attitudes and behaviours” in the last 12 months, a new survey from the Royal National Institute for Deaf people (RNID) has revealed. Two-thirds (66 per cent) of deaf people, BSL signers and those with hearing loss combined ..read more
Liam O'Dell | Freelance Journalist and Campaigner
6d ago
The new play from Olivier award-nominated two Palestinians go dogging playwright Sami Ibrahim is a curious and provocative premise, terribly executed. Three potential aid workers are undergoing training in a London centre, but it’s two of them – Khaled (Luca Kamleh Chapman) and Sarah (Rosa Robson) – using hypothetical scenarios and role-play as refugees and ..read more
Liam O'Dell | Freelance Journalist and Campaigner
6d ago
Can you believe that there is only one care home for Deaf people in the whole of the UK, in the Isle of Wight, with just 15 beds available? Following on from 2022’s Everyday highlighting Deaf experiences of domestic abuse and last year’s one-off staging of The Vagina Monologues, Deafinitely Theatre continue to bring urgent ..read more
Liam O'Dell | Freelance Journalist and Campaigner
1w ago
There are few similarities between David Greig’s theatrical adaptation of the Philip K Dick short story, and Steven Spielberg’s 2002 punt at translating the book to the silver screen (with the help of Tom Cruise), but this play is all the better for it. While the film was, undoubtedly, ahead of its time in its ..read more
Liam O'Dell | Freelance Journalist and Campaigner
2w ago
If Deaf representation in cinema has shifted from Oscar winner CODA and Riz Ahmed helmed Sound of Metal framing music as the antithesis to our lived experience, to a string of stories starring vengeful Deaf antiheroes in the Marvel series Echo and – now – ultra-violent movie Boy Kills World (starring Bill Skarsgård), then I ..read more
Liam O'Dell | Freelance Journalist and Campaigner
2w ago
Alex Gowlland, deputy director of the Cabinet Office’s Disability Unit, has said the UK Government “strongly rejects” findings from the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, to which Gowlland gave evidence in Geneva in March. The UN committee published a report this week in which it concluded the UK Government has ..read more