Blind actress to appear in Emmerdale
Actress and comedienne Kitty Mcgeever, who became blind at age 32, has landed a role in ITV prime-time soap opera Emmerdale. She is set to arrive in April playing Lizzie Lakely an old friend of Lisa Dingle. It seems the show's producers have been listening to demands from disabled audiences for more rounded, dramatic roles as along with her cane, Lizzie is set to bring "remorseless bad behaviour and mischievous antics" to the village.
She is the latest disabled actress to be cast in a soap, following Hollyoaks' Kelly Marie-Stewart who we interviewed on our March podcast.
With more disabled characters now popping up on our screens, the real question seems to be which soap will be next to take the plunge and cast one in a major role. At a recent ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ staff event, drama execs keenly discussed ideas for getting more disabled characters on EastEnders. So it's worth keeping an eye on Walford for any developments...
Comment number 1.
At 14th Mar 2009, myrtlemaid wrote:Will be interesting to see how they develop this and how they place her..
Will she be just another character who happens to be disabled or will she be a token character whos main reason for existence is her "condition ".
Hope she isnt portrayed as far more capable or less capable than the average blind person...
hope they keep blind peoples abilities "real"... will she for example by some miracle be able to find her way from a to b in't village when she first arrives with no help??? Most blind people wouldnt be able to do so even with a dog..guide dogs aint good map readers and they dont have sat nav in their little furry heads...
Ah well is a good thing overall.. shes not emmerdales first disabled person so I expect the makers will have worked closely with thr RNIB and blind people in script writing.( she
says more in hope than expectation ).
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