Kathryn Harrison

Review of BBC Worldwide

We attended the Russell Howard Hour filming here a...

We attended the Russell Howard Hour filming here and it was really brilliant. I would be giving it 5 stars however I'm disabled with invisible illnesses that cause me extreme joint, muscle and nerve pain and the accessibility help was pretty non-existant for me personally. I emailed the organiser a few weeks beforehand and didn't get any help, when I arrived at the venue I found a member of staff immediately and told her my issues, that I couldn't stand for long and where is the accessibility entrance and she just said to just join the queue with everyone else as it won't be long. We ended up queuing for just over an hour and I was in absolute agony which then affected my enjoyment of the actual show since I was in so much pain throughout. I tried to get the attention of a few staff when we got to the bit where you are herded a big group but no luck. I noticed that people who had crutches and wheelchairs were whisked right to the front and presumably in first yet they didn't want to know with me. Also we had 'priority' tickets but we were seated pretty much last and right at the back of the studio. So really priority tickets mean you aren't a priority at all. And yes, I know it was free, but I'd still expect some sort of accessibility help in place for ANYBODY who requires it. I will say though I have no idea if these failings were of the venue staff or if they were the organisers staff? Also the methods in which they call the different colours of wristband was shambolic there wasn't many people with priority it seemed and when we were called we were right at the back of the big crowd and had to push our way through to the front when we were called much to the upset of other patrons, it took sometime and was very difficult for me for obviously reasons then when we were at the front it was 'I don't know why they've called you now' then we were told to wait to one side while they called in hundreds of others before us. They didn't seem to have a proper system and none of it made sense. To me they should be lining up the different colours separately and in the order they want to call them inside. When inside the warm up comedian told us that before we arrived they'd done a survey in the queue and those people were given different wrist bands which seemed to get them in first and the best seating. I'm really not sure what the point of our priority tickets were when if we'd just rocked up earlier and chanced it we apparently would have got much better seating and could have been shown on the show instead of being in the back row. Overall I liked the venue, loved the show but the organisation and disability training is lacking to say the least.