Anyone who has been to the theatre will know how difficult it can be to pick up everything the performers are saying, especially if the show happens to be in another language.
No worries though, thanks to today’s technology and consultants at Software Technology Group at Cambridge, there’s a new gadget that’s been developed which will offer live captions of a theatre performance in eight different languages.
Hire yourself one of these at a show and you can choose to have the script relayed live via Wi-Fi in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Japanese or Chinese. Tourists are bound to love it.
At the moment it’s only the Shaftesbury Theatre in London that is offering the AirScripts for hire at £6 a go for their showing of ‘Hairspray’ but if it takes off no doubt others will follow.
Now we all know that at theatres the use of mobile phones, cameras etc. are generally not welcomed so what about this new gadget why is that going to be any different?
David Bradshaw, a consultant at the technology group said that this was taken into consideration during the development of the device.
“Theatres are not typically welcoming of technology in the auditorium” he told BBC News.
“Our biggest challenge was to get a screen into a theatre that wouldn’t distract the rest of the audience.”
The handheld gadgets have LED backlighting and use orange text in order to reduce glare. There’s no need for elaborate software, the scripts scroll along the screen and disappear, and nothing is stored, not much to them really. So why has no one come up with this before?
Alex Veigh, Chief Executive of Show Tranlsations, the company marketing the Airscripts reckons a device like this was unthinkable until now because of the cost.
“Twenty years ago it would have cost £10 million to develop,” he told BBC News. “With new technology, it’s more affordable.”
Ok so how does the thing work? I mean performances are live and each one is different so how does the gadget get the text at the same time the words are being uttered on stage?
Ben Young is the manual operator at Shaftesbury theatre and it’s his job to make sure the text goes out on time.
Now you’d think that might be a bit of a boring job wouldn’t you but no, not for young. He describes the experience as being “like two and half hours of playing Guitar Hero”.
Somehow I doubt it. Cool gadget though!
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