Latest news with #CatherineMoulton
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
How Crime Series ‘Code of Silence,' Starring Rose Ayling-Ellis, Put Inclusion Front and Center
Crime drama Code of Silence, premiering on ITV and streamer ITVX in the U.K. on May 18 and on streaming service BritBox in the U.S. and Canada in July, breaks new ground in several ways. Not only does it star rising British actress Rose Ayling-Ellis, who has been tearing down walls left and right for years, in her first-ever lead role. And not only does her role as Alison, a smart and determined deaf woman who works in a police canteen and gets recruited to use her lip-reading skills in a covert operation, redefine how deaf characters can be featured on screen. More from The Hollywood Reporter David di Donatello Awards: Maura Delpero's War Drama 'Vermiglio' Wins Best Film What Happens to Hollywood When the U.S. Is No Longer the Good Guy? Turkish Mobile Gaming Studio Fuse Games Gets $7 Million in Funding But most important, Code of Silence is an example of a crime show targeting a broad audience that also provides representation for the deaf, disabled and neurodiverse communities, both in front of and behind the camera. As such, it is already being touted as a potential role model for inclusion and accessibility — and at a time when across the Atlantic, the White House has been cracking down on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. Created and written by Catherine Moulton (Baptiste, Hijack), who drew on her own experiences with lip-reading and hearing loss, the detective show also features Kieron Moore (Vampire Academy, Masters of the Air, The Corps), Charlotte Ritchie (You, Ghosts) and Andrew Buchan (Black Doves, The Honourable Woman, Broadchurch). Code of Silence is executive produced by Bryony Arnold and Damien Timmer for ITV Studios' Mammoth Screen, alongside Robert Schildhouse and Stephen Nye for BritBox, as well as Ayling-Ellis and Moulton. Check out a trailer for the series here. The creative team saw the show as an opportunity to tell an exciting story with a deaf protagonist that allowed them to weave in and represent deaf people's experiences but without lecturing audiences. 'The fact that this is a deaf protagonist leading a show for a mainstream audience in such a compelling circumstance is just brilliant,' Arnold tells THR. 'It is a thriller and a relationship drama, but underneath that, we will hopefully be teaching the audience a little bit about deaf awareness and deaf culture.' Not that all deaf experiences are the same. 'Rose and I both have different experiences of deafness,' Moulton, who is partially deaf, tells THR. 'And we had a script head who is deaf, and we had deaf, disabled and neurodiverse (DDN) people throughout the crew. That just felt like a very different experience. The TV industry hasn't historically been great at being inclusive. And I just was really happy that we made this show in this way.' Arnold, who is a disabled wheelchair user, is a director of Deaf & Disabled People in TV (DDPTV), an organization made up of people who work in the TV industry helping to elevate offscreen deaf, disabled, and neurodivergent talent. 'From the very moment I came on board, everyone was very much in agreement on the principle, the ethos that we wanted to make it an inclusive show,' she says with pride. 'Of course, there is inclusion in the story, but we needed to be practicing that behind the camera as well. We wanted to make sure that we had a really diverse crew, including deaf, disabled, neurodiverse people. We said we want to have this inclusive practice and would love for people to hire at least one DDN person into each department, and everyone was so up for it, which was wonderful.' The result: 'Accessibility and inclusivity were at the heart of the show.' How did the team go about the hiring? 'We did social media shout-outs, which isn't the normal way of employing people, particularly in TV, but we got such an amazing response from it,' Arnold recalls. 'Over 1,000 people wanted to apply, which was slightly overwhelming.' Beyond staffing, Code of Silence also focused on how the set and shoots were set up. For example, the production employed an access coordinator. 'They were liaising with any member of the crew saying, 'Can I have some assistance here?' Because sometimes something really, really small can make a huge difference. So we made sure our production base was all accessible,' Arnold shares. 'Sometimes it is just someone needing a chair or needing taxis. And it was the first time that a dining bus has been made fully accessible on a show and my first time in the nearly 20 years I've been in this industry that I could sit with everyone on the dining bus because it was wheelchair-accessible. So that was nice.' The production truck was also accessible as were the facilities. 'With the toilets, we were making sure that when we went onto locations, there was access via ramps and all sorts of other things,' she explains. The experience is now being analyzed for possible broader industry lessons. 'The problem with the government at the moment is that they want more disabled people to get into work. Unfortunately, there are not the necessary support systems in place. There is the Access to Work (AtW) scheme, but it's incredibly challenging to navigate alone, and so we've been doing this pilot to help navigate that system in a simpler way,' explains Arnold. Code of Silence is part of a pilot for The TV Access Project alongside the BBC and Channel Four and ITV, which aimed to streamline the application process and 'hopefully get the funding in place for an individual's access requirements so they could fully do their jobs,' adds the executive producer. 'This could cover anything from British Sign Language interpreters, having the right equipment, help with transport, etc. As the current wait times for applications to be considered are a staggering 35 weeks, ITV helped to plug the financial gap whilst we waited for the application to be assessed, with the aim of AtW eventually reimbursing the costs. We've yet to find out the results, but quite a few members of our crew used the system, and hopefully, it will create a new pathway for people to quickly gain access to work and get the necessary support they require.' Since small things can make all the difference when it comes to making everyone feel at ease, the production team on Code of Silence even had a printed Facebook of sorts. 'We had a unit list which had everyone's photograph on it because the moment you walked onto a set, there are about 100 new faces,' Arnold highlights. 'For me, as a hearing person, I'm going, 'Oh my god, there are a lot of people here.' So that was just something so simple, but really, really effective for everybody.' Plus, there was an easy-read call sheet. 'A call sheet can be quite a thing,' lead director Diarmuid Goggins (Kin, Black Cab) tells THR. 'There's a lot of information. So this just brought out the most important facts if you just wanted a quick glance.' His take on this and other measures on set. 'It's about small things. I think sometimes people think inclusion is going to be this wholesale change and are scared of change and or things that are different,' he says. 'But you don't really need to do anything other than just be a little bit.' Deaf awareness was, of course, particularly important. 'What makes this show really different is that we wanted to ensure that everybody who was coming on board had deaf awareness training,' Arnold explains. People coming to a shoot could also immediately notice key differences. 'When you went on set, there were interpreters there and the British Sign Language monitors working with the actors on the scenes that were all in sign language,' Moulton recalls. 'That felt like a really important positive thing about the show.' How did the British Sign Language (BSL) monitor work? 'We had our BSL monitor on set with us, for example, in scenes with Fifi Garfield, who plays Alison's mother, to help basically make sure that, with consultation with Rose and the director, the phrasing was right,' says Arnold. Because words in spoken English don't necessarily translate to BSL, so making sure that all felt credible, and also making sure that there's consistency all the way through, was important.' The whole cast and crew even got to learn a sign of the day from Ayling-Ellis. 'The sign of the day was based on what happened that week,' the star explains. 'During Halloween week, I did a Halloween theme. A favorite there was 'vampire.' And then Christmas week, we did a Christmas theme.' And when the team went to a pub, she taught everyone the sign for 'pub.' The set also featured other nonverbal cues to make things easier. For example, it used colored signs on the cast trailers/dressing rooms and production trucks. 'On most productions, every single door sign is white with black lettering,' explains Arnold. 'But, by using colors, it meant that cast and crew with access requirements could see, 'That castmember has a pink sign,' or 'The men's toilet has a yellow sign' — they would know to head for that color, rather than look for the words or the name. These benefit cast and crew with visual impairments, who are neurodivergent or learning disabled. Simple changes that benefit everybody are important.' The stars of the show enjoyed the open arms, open minds approach permeating the Code of Silence production experience. 'I really found and felt on the set how inclusive it was,' Ritchie shares her experience. 'Sometimes, TV sets can be really a bit fast-paced, can get a bit impersonal, and you can brush past people in the morning and maybe not take the time to communicate and check in. And I felt that with this production, there was such an emphasis on really looking at people, really making sure that people understood, and that there was communication.' The actress would be happy to see more of this. 'I think that the more that's possible, the nicer the set feels and the more people are able to work in a way that feels expansive and just puts communication at the forefront,' she concludes. 'So I felt really grateful for that. And Rose did a really amazing job, because [she] didn't have to, but [she] did make so much space for everybody to do that. It was just beautiful and great. It's just an example of why inclusion is so important, because it just opens you up and opens up your mind.' Ayling-Ellis hopes that the opportunity to play her first lead role in Code of Silence can also help young deaf viewers. 'When I was younger, I didn't have anyone on TV [as a role model] at all,' she recalls. 'So how much of a difference could that make. What I love about TV is that you can live in the smallest town ever, where you know everyone and everyone's the same. But TV can kind of break through that and show you a different world. That is the power of TV.' Best of The Hollywood Reporter 22 of the Most Shocking Character Deaths in Television History A 'Star Wars' Timeline: All the Movies and TV Shows in the Franchise 'Yellowstone' and the Sprawling Dutton Family Tree, Explained
Irish Independent
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Independent
‘Code of Silence' review: Taut thriller with a deaf lead is a groundbreaking drama series
Code of Silence, a wonderfully suspenseful thriller, is written by Catherine Moulton, who has been partially deaf since birth Today at 21:30 Dramas that break new ground can come in all shapes and sizes. Still, the last place you'd expect to find boundaries being smashed is in an ITV crime drama. It's long been considered unacceptable for characters with a disability to be played by actors without one, which was the norm back in the days of series like Ironside (wheelchair-using police chief) and Longstreet (blind insurance investigator).
Daily Mail
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Don't put our Rose in danger, she's a national treasure in the making: CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews last night's TV
Code Of Silence ITV1 Tolerant and slow to anger though we are, the British public can never excuse some evils. Cruelty to puppies is one. Sneering at the late Queen is another. But most reprehensible of all, a crime beyond forgiveness, is being horrid to Rose Ayling-Ellis. Craig Revel Horwood found this out to his cost on Strictly Come Dancing in 2021, when he was the only judge not to award Rose the full ten points for her semi-final waltz with Giovanni Pernice. Craig gave her a measly nine, and was roundly castigated from all quarters. Actor Andrew Buchan is likely to find himself shunned in the street for his performance as crabby DI James Marsh, in Code Of Silence. We can tell he's a martinet and a bully from the moment he gives her a condescending smile, before telling colleagues she isn't up to the job. How dare he?! Our lovely Rose, so diffident and naive, yet dauntlessly brave? He ought to consider himself jolly lucky to have her on the team. The job in question is lip-reading for a police surveillance unit, stalking a gang of robbers suspected of planning a heist on a jewel vault. Rose plays dinner lady Alison, plucked from the police canteen to watch covert video footage and decode what the robbers are saying. Writer Catherine Moulton shows, without labouring the point, how police and catering bosses alike imagine Alison must be a bit thick, because she's deaf. They talk down to her and begin with the assumption that she'll struggle with whatever they ask of her, whether that's serving an oat milk latte or identifying the target of a multi-million-pound robbery. Even the officer who first spots her potential, DS Francis (Charlotte Ritchie), treats her as an appealing but innocent child. Alison is never bitter, but the frustration sometimes shows through. 'I don't want to be hearing,' she complains to her mother (Fifi Garfield), 'I just want other people to be a bit deaf.' It's easy to believe that, fed up of being underestimated, Alison will take reckless risks to prove herself useful. These include getting a job as a barmaid at a pub owned by the chief villain (Joe Absolom), and chatting up the gang's computer hacker, Liam (Kieron Moore). This is no hardship, since Liam clearly fancies the socks off her, and can't believe his luck that she'll even talk to him — especially after he knocks her off her bike. What he doesn't know, of course, is that she was trying to tail his car at the time. Charming and a bit goofy though he is, Liam is part of a vicious gang. The moment last night at the end of the second episode, when he and his boss caught Alison spying on them over the pub's CCTV, was genuinely alarming. She's our Rose, a national treasure in the making. We don't want to see her in any worse jeopardy than a dodgy cha-cha-cha.
Cosmopolitan
18-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Cosmopolitan
Code of Silence cast: Rose Ayling-Ellis and Charlotte Ritchie lead ITV's gripping new thriller
ITV's newest drama guaranteed to take over our Sunday nights is Code of Silence, a gripping new series with a twist like no other. Inspired by series creator Catherine Moulton's own experience of hearing loss and lip reading, Code of Silence follows Alison Brooks, a Deaf worker at a police canteen who is spotted for her talent in lip reading and recruited by the police to be part of a large scale operation to try a take down a dangerous gang. Soon Alison finds herself in the middle of a dangerous new world, and just as the stakes are raised Alison finds herself being drawn to one of the key suspects. The new series kicks off tonight on ITV1 and ITVx at 9pm, and it's stacked with an iconic cast and here's where you know them from.
Wales Online
17-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Wales Online
Code of Silence start date, cast, episode count and how to watch as it lands on ITV
Code of Silence start date, cast, episode count and how to watch as it lands on ITV Strictly Come Dancing winner Rose Ayling-Ellis has taken on the lead role in ITV's new crime drama. ITV's new crime drama Code of Silence is set to air in just a few days (Image: MAMMOTH SCREEN/ITV ) ITV's brand new crime drama starring actress and Strictly Come Dancing champion, Rose Ayling-Ellis, as the lead is set to air in just a few days. From Catherine Moulton, the writer behind Hijack and Baptiste, the six-part series tells the story of Alison Brooks, a 29-year-old deaf woman who works in the canteen of Kent and Canterbury police station. It is her lip-reading skills that see her called in as an emergency lip reader for a "high-stakes police investigation". A synopsis for the show continues: "Recruited by DI James Marsh and DS Ashleigh Francis, Alison proves invaluable as she assists in surveilling a gang planning a major heist, while she also has to navigate her mother's financial struggles, a broken relationship, and the ableist attitudes she encounters at work." Code of Silence follows the complex criminal investigation by Canterbury police (Image: ITV ) Speaking previously about starring in the series, Rose who has been deaf since birth and is a British Sign Language user, said she was "thrilled" to work on the show. Article continues below Speaking to RadioTimes, she added: "When I first read Catherine Moulton's script it was obvious that her first-hand experiences and understanding has enabled her to write a truly authentic character and I knew I had to be a part of this project." Ahead of the show's much anticipated debut, here's everything you need to know about the gripping show Code of Silence. When does Code of Silence air? ITV has assured that the show boasts "a diverse cast and crew from the deaf, disabled, and neurodiverse communities" (Image: MAMMOTH SCREEN/ITV ) The first episode of Code of Silence will premiere at 9pm on ITV1, STV, ITVX and STV Player on Sunday, May 18. It is the first of what is a six-part series. ITV has assured that the show boasts "a diverse cast and crew from the deaf, disabled, and neurodiverse communities". Who is in the cast of Code of Silence? Code of Silence is led by deaf actor, TV presenter and Strictly Come Dancing champion Rose Ayling-Ellis. The actress is also joined by Netflix You star Charlotte Ritchie and Black Doves star Andrew Buchan. The cast list for ITV's new drama Code of Silence is: Rose Ayling-Ellis - Alison Woods Kieron Moore - Liam Bayne Charlotte Ritchie - DS Ashleigh Francis Andrew Buchan - DI James Marsh Nathan Armarkwei Laryea - DC Ben Lawford Joe Absolom - Braden Moore Beth Goddard - Helen Redman Andrew Scarborough - Joseph Holhurst Fifi Garfield - Julie Woods Rose Ayling-Ellis stars as Alison Brooks in the new ITV drama Code of Silence (Image: MAMMOTH SCREEN/ITV ) Article continues below How to watch Code of Silence You can watch Code of Silence on ITV1, STV, ITVX and STV Player, with the first episode set to air at 9pm on Sunday, May 18. Code of Silence is coming to ITV1 and ITVX on Sunday 18th May 2025.
