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.
Importantly, 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 are 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 off-screen 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 non-verbal 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 cast member has a pink sign,’ or ‘The men’s toilet has a yellow sign’ – they would know to head for that color, rather than look or 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.”
