Audio description in the theatre and the visual arts. Images into words

The UK’s Royal National Institute of the Blind (RNIB) has defined audio description (AD) as ‘an enabling service for blind and partially sighted audiences […] describing clearly, vividly and succinctly what is happening on screen or theatre stage in the silent intervals between programme commentary or dialogue — in order to convey the principal visual elements of a production’. Essentially, it is an attempt to make accessible a work of theatre — or any other audiovisual production — for an audience who are either blind or have partial sight by giving in a verbal form some of the information which a sighted person can easily access.