No soft soap on disability

In the past year, three big TV soap operas have introduced disabled actors into their cast. Now the final big player is following suit, as wheelchair-user Cherylee Houston moves onto Coronation Street in April. But, like those before her, she seems to have personal problems. Cathy Reay asks what the big deal is

It’s quite astonishing to think that, less than 18 months ago, a disabled actor had never been cast as a regular character in a British soap opera.

Now, they’re everywhere, from wheelchair users David Proud in EastEnders and Kelly-Marie Stewart in Hollyoaks to blind actress Kitty McGeever in Emmerdale and now Cherylee Houston in Coronation Street.

It’s unarguably fantastic that programme producers are responding to the fact that there are hugely talented disabled actors out there and are pushing them into the limelight.

But it’s also evident that producers have responded to concerns within the disabled community by not tiptoeing round disability and ensuring their disabled characters don’t elicit pity. They’ve done this by giving these characters a range of personality traits, including some that are pretty nasty.

Their motivation is understandable. Disabled people aren’t angelic just because they’re disabled.

But suppose the balance has swung too far the other way and they’re sending out the message that all disabled characters are also bad or neurotic, and that their flaws are linked in some way to their disability?

Blind actress Kitty McGeever joined Emmerdale early last year as lively Lizzie Lakely, a feisty character with a penchant for petty thievery. Mouthy and ballsy, she isn’t above using the fact that she can’t see to get what she wants.

But Lizzie’s anger isn’t the product of her disability. “Her edge is a kick against the way disability has been portrayed on TV for years,” says Kitty. “It can be soul-destroying to watch disabled people crying and moaning on-screen and saying ‘Get me out of my chair.’”

Has Lizzie’s character development been tied by the scriptwriters to her disability? “I don’t think the character Lizzie has a chip on her shoulder [about being disabled],” says Kitty. “As much as it was made clear she’s hard, it’s because she was left without parents, not because she’s blind.

But tempered with that, she’s also warm and humorous. People tend to think ‘You can’t help but like this girl.’”

David Proud joined the cast of EastEnders last summer as Manda’s son Adam Best, a character the BBC described as “snobbish” and “self-centred”. Through his conniving ways, Adam comes across as malicious, selfish and unkind, though David is quick to deny his script-editor has landed him with a disability-related evil. “At some point we’ll get to see what makes Adam tick. [At the moment] it’s not completely obvious [but] there are other issues he has that are nothing to do with his wheelchair,” he says.

David admits that since he first appeared on screen in November 2009, more and more people have come up to him on the street to tell him how irritating his character is, though warmly.

“Most memorable characters in a soap are flawed; they aren’t straight-laced,” he says. “Nice characters don’t have the same impact. Adam is multi-dimensional; he needs the love of a good woman to sort him out!”

It was Kelly-Marie Stewart who was first in the door when she snagged the role of Hayley Ramsey in teen soap Hollyoaks last December. Since joining the show, her character has made a fair few enemies, though she seems the least troubled of the three. In the case of Hayley’s pregnancy, that was written into the script after Kelly-Marie revealed her own real-life pregnancy. Hollyoaks creators chose to treat her just like any other member of the cast.

The usual tendency in soaps is for producers to play off virtue against vice. Since viewers cut disabled characters more slack than able-bodied characters, it’s natural that script-editors will set their disabled characters up to perform against expectation. The dangers come when performing against expectation becomes a habit. When ITV’s press release came out, it announced Cherylee Houston’s character Izzy as “fiery” and “feisty”, a personality not to be messed with, a personality troubled by her past. Lizzie Lakely, Adam Best and Hayley Ramsey had all been described in similar terms.

So maybe the tide has gone too far. There now seems to be a convention by which programmers routinely make disabled characters vengeful and personality-driven. Is it too much to ask for a disabled person to play the good guy for once?

• Cherylee Houston will first appear as Izzy (surname tba) in Coronation Street on 16 April.

•• What do you think of David, Kitty and Kelly-Marie’s characters? Do you think they paint
a positive or negative image of disability? Visit disabilitynow.org.uk to leave your comments.