Back when Sandra MacDonald reviewed Scottish Opera’s The Great Wave for theQR, she noted something that many theatregoers probably feel: even though the production was sung in English, the surtitles still felt necessary.
That observation points to a wider shift, making the case for surtitles as accessible design for everybody. Between complex libretti, unpredictable acoustics, and singers battling an orchestra, words are simply easy to lose.
At home, audiences made peace with this long ago. Younger generations (and my beloved wife) now watch streaming television with subtitles permanently switched on, simply accustomed to taking in their visual entertainment with text on screen.
Yet live theatre has been slow to catch up. For decades, venues have treated projected text as an occasional concession, reserved for foreign-language opera or the token captioned matinee (and incurring significant costs.)
A Practical Tool for the Fringe
Much of that reluctance comes down to logistics. For smaller Scottish companies and touring outfits, captioning has long felt like an administrative headache—wrestling with clunky presentation slides, hiring extra projectors, and paying an operator to click through lines cue by cue. Professional solutions do exist, but at a price.
A new software platform, Captitles, launched this autumn from Prague, is aiming to clear these hurdles. The system claims to convert an existing script or libretto into formatted, line-split captions in minutes, using microphones to detect spoken dialogue and advance text automatically.
Interestingly, the setup removes an obligation for venue hardware. Alongside standard screens, captions and spoken audio translations can stream straight to audience smartphones through an app.
For the scrappy ecosystem of the Edinburgh Fringe, where turnaround times between shows are measured in minutes, that kind of mobility could be transformative. Campaigners at the festival have spent years calling for genuine, consistent accessibility across smaller venues; a lightweight, screen-free system might finally offer what advocates have long hoped for.
It also makes straightforward economic sense. In a difficult funding climate, opening doors to hard-of-hearing audiences, international visitors, and subtitle-reliant theatregoers for €4.99 a day can pay for itself with just one or two extra ticket sales a night.
Most of all, making the process routine helps retire the ritual of the isolated accessible performance—that solitary matinee that treats inclusion as a special treat.
‘I hope that Captitles helps make access a normal part of how theatre is planned and presented, rather than something available only on occasional designated performances,’ said Mira Podorsky, Founder and Product Designer of Captitles, exclusively to theQR.co.uk. ‘The real value is in giving more people the freedom to choose what they see, when they see it, and to take part in the cultural life around them on equal terms.’
Whether software can effortlessly keep pace with the unpredictable acoustics of live performance remains to be seen. But as the technology moves from development into rehearsal rooms, it will be fascinating to see Captitles out in the wild and to see how it performs.
Featured Image: Captitles in action – taken from Captitles website.
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