Accessible Arts for All: Celebrating our Progress

At Little Angel Theatre, we aim to provide opportunities that will directly benefit those with special educational needs (SEND) or disabilities, fostering creative engagement, and providing families with accessible, positive activities. Our work is led by a staff group with representatives from across the organisation, working to make our operations as accessible as possible.

Only 20% of parents feel their disabled or neurodiverse children get sufficient support. Theatre builds resilience, creativity, and confidence through inclusive, sensory experiences.

There are approximately 8,000 people aged 0-25 with SEND in Islington alone. It has been increasingly difficult for families to access support and resources, and the strain put on local schools has increased with more children requiring education, health and care plans, largely due to SEND. Families are therefore forced to withdraw from community programmes to prioritise core needs, leading to a lower quality of life.

Our Programme

Little Angel offers at least one subsidised relaxed performance* per show in our main schedule, with an accompanying visual story designed to prioritise individuals with additional needs and reduce the financial barriers that prevent the families interacting with our programmes. We also offer a BSL interpreted performance per show, tailored for those who use British Sign Language, with interpreters positioned at the front of the stage, directly benefiting the D/deaf community enriching their creative experience at LAT. Our digital programme also subtitled to make it more accessible.

“The staff were lovely and our son really enjoyed the show. We were less anxious about how he might react because we had the visual story in advance and knew it was okay if he needed to step out for a bit.” – Audience feedback

We were thrilled to be listed as one of the best things to do for families with autistic children in Islington Now (read full article here) as well as celebrating International Wheelchair day (see full post here) with Katie Anna McConnell, Artistic Access Consultant (Access Able).

“It’s genuinely such a warm and welcoming environment, where you don’t have to feel like and outsider because everything is available to you as easily as everyone else… The Little Angel Theatre really is the place to be if you know any disabled youngsters.” – Katie Anna McConnell

These performances are supported through fundraising – we are incredibly grateful to the individuals and foundations that have supported our work so far! This year we raised £10.5k through our summer Big Give campaign – this will be enough to deliver our relaxed and BSL interpreted shows for the 2025/26 financial year, however we fell slightly short of our full target, which we had hoped to use to offer tailored family activities alongside our accessible productions, and to increase the pool of SEND children and their families that benefit from accessible performances through targeted marketing.

If you are interested in supporting us in expanding our access offer and increasing our impact you can donate here. Or contact us directly at development@littleangeltheatre.com to find out more.

*Relaxed Performances are adapted for those who would benefit from a more relaxed environment, or are uncomfortable with sudden lighting changes or loud noises, including those with an Autistic Spectrum Condition, sensory or communication needs or a learning disability.

Our Operations

In Summer 2024 we undertook an access audit of our buildings, thanks to funding from the City Bridge Trust. The audit concluded that LAT’s venues are… “accessible to a wide range of people including disabled people, and suitable for use as an inclusive performance centre and community facility that will be attended by employees, visitors, audience members and performers.”

Of course, there are always ways we can improve, and we are currently fundraising to be able to invest in making accessible adjustments to our buildings as recommended by the audit and provide training to our staff to make our venues truly inclusive spaces.

In December 2024 we were awarded funding from Islington Giving Disability Fund in order to provide training to our front facing staff (visitor experience, box office and workshop facilitators primarily) on improving our approach to inclusivity, delivered by Angel Shed Theatre Company. The training involved guidance around practical tools, knowledge, and strategies on inclusive leadership, communication, facilitation and language.  The sessions were tailored specifically to support our delivery and activity and included lots of practical exercises relevant to scenarios we were likely to come across.

“The training was a fantastic opportunity to share good practice, talk through ideas and come together as a team to explore how we can make our work more accessible to more people.   The training was solution focused – we were able to implement some simple changes straight away. There was also space to consider longer term strategic plans that we could build into future funding applications for physical adaptations to benefit access as well as programming and procedure decisions that would help with access and inclusivity.” Sarah Schofield – Head of Creative Learning

We were delighted to be awarded a grant from the Theatres Trust in March 2025 in order to install an additional handrail on our front staircase. This has been installed at a height of 600mm above the ground (below our current handrail) to allow use by children and people of smaller stature. Some of the most common barriers reported by disabled people include difficulty due to a lack of ramps or handrails (22% – Life Opportunities Survey). Installing the additional handrail on our staircase has not only helped us to support those of different abilities to move around our space independently, but also the large number of children who visit us every year – we had over 26,000 people access our studios building last year to attend live performances, workshops and community events.

As part of this project, we will also be installing an additional handrail up the stairs to the dressing room to support an actor using the space with mobility issues, and adding additional handrails at 1000mm above the ground to the doors of our workshop space to allow use by a wheelchair user, child or person of smaller stature. All of these adjustments have been made possible by the grant that we received from the Theatres Trust and have helped us to make vital steps towards ensuring our building is safe and welcoming for everyone to attend.

Our priorities going forwards…

• We are delighted to have secured some new funds from the Basil Samuel Charitable Trust for our next phase of building adaptations at our Studios space – we are planning to use this to install power assisted doors at the venue.
• We are currently fundraising to deliver Family Craft Activities to go alongside our accessible productions. These are interactive workshops inspired by our shows, designed for families. Funding helps us collaborate with specialists to give free, creative activities for children attending our relaxed performances, promoting skill development and creativity.
• We are researching groups and mailing lists for families and schools to promote our accessible activities to a wider pool of beneficiaries

If your family or school would benefit from a relaxed or BSL interpreted performance, join the mailing list by contacting boxoffice@littleangeltheatre.com