Edinburgh Fringe Captioning
Offering live captioning throughout the Fringe!
Live calendar of booked shows
This calendar is for audience information only, and doesn’t necessarily indicate available slots. Please contact us if you would like to book a captioner for your show.
Live captioning of Fringe shows
What’s the difference between captioning and live captioning?
Both make performances accessible to deaf, deafened and hard-of-hearing people (11 million people in the UK) and can be displayed on a plasma screen or caption unit (open captioning) or handheld devices (closed captioning).
Captioning is suitable for shows that have a script; the text is output line-by-line by a trained captioner, so although lines can be skipped, the text can’t be edited during the performance.
Live captioning is output word-by-word by a realtime stenographer, and thus is suitable for shows that are partly or completely improvised, or have audience participation.
Why programme a captioned performance and not BSL?
Captioning or subtitling reaches more people than BSL interpretation. Of the 11 million deaf, deafened and hard of hearing people in the UK, only around 250,000 use BSL, and most of them will be assisted by a captioned performance.
Captioning helps audience members with English as a second language, as well as those with auditory processing difficulties. Ideally you would programme a captioned performance AND a BSL interpreted performance – we’re happy to share our preparation materials with a BSL interpreter and liaise with them about the language used.
Why should you use Claire Hill and her team?
Claire has extensive theatre and comedy experience including seven years captioning Edinburgh Fringe shows. She provides all her own display equipment, and won’t charge you any expenses. Sheryll Holley made her debut at the Fringe in 2023, and captions comedy and theatre in Wales, as well as conferences and meetings.
We will also provide a transcript of the show if requested, and subtitles for your YouTube videos. We do our own publicity to generate audience, and the team will tweet about every show we caption.