Blind actress Kitty McGeever, who plays Lizzie Lakely in the soap opera Emmerdale, called upon runners to join her at the Sense Vision 5K race in Leeds when she was interviewed on BBC Look North on 3 June 2009..
Lara Rostron and Harry Gration are the TV presenters who interviewed Kitty.
Lara Rostron: Well our next guest has certainly overcome a hurdle or two. Last month she became the first blind actress to be cast in a British soap.
Harry Gration: Kitty McGeever trained as an actress at Rada but lost her sight at the age of 33 following an illness, but she never lost her sense of humour, I can tell you that, and she joins us now. First of all, what is it like being on the soap? Tell us about that.
Kitty McGeever: It’s just the best job I’ve ever had. It’s out of this world.
Lara: It’s a great character that you play.
Kitty: It is a great character. It’s wonderful to come in a play a real naughty character. She’s not a victim in any way, as people who have seen the show will tell you, and she is irreverent in the extreme, but I think now that I’ve been in it a few weeks we are going to see layers to Lizzie, maybe a little bit of vulnerability creeping in and people pressing her buttons a little bit.
Lara: There is certainly some attitude going on in some of the pictures we’re seeing.
Kitty: *laughs*
Lara: It’s interesting isn’t it? As a disabled actress taking the part, it’s a good part, as you say. It is not somebody being portrayed as a victim, or someone struggling with life.
Kitty: Well I really think it has never been portrayed like this before, disability. I really don’t think it has. Lizzie is ahead of the game all the time, and she is very funny, and clever, and witty, and I don’t think we have ever really seen that, where the disabled character is actually more quick witted and ahead of the game than the sighted people that are around her.
Harry: Let me ask you now about this run.
Kitty: Oh, yes.
Harry: because I do a bit of running.
Kitty: Do you? Well you must come Harry. I’m going to rope you in.
Harry: Please do. I will have a go.
Kitty: Fantastic.
Harry: How difficult is it running without being able to see?
Kitty: It’s not easy, but it challenges your senses, which is wonderful. We are doing it for Sense, which is the national deafblind charity, and it coincides with the national Deafblind Awareness Week. So many people say to me ‘oh it must be so hard being blind’ because I think we’ve become so ego-centric about vision, and people believe that without vision you can’t do anything else, but we forget that we have all these other senses. You can use your hearing, touch, smell, the feel of the pavement under your feet, things like that. So the run is a 5k race, which equates to about 3 miles I think, around Roundhay Park on the 28th June at 11.00. What we’re doing, what makes this fun and unique, is that we are encouraging sighted runners, or walkers, you can walk it as well, to take part, but to do it blindfolded.
Harry: If I can come I will. I’ll tell you something, you can talk Kitty, can’t you!
Kitty: I can’t half, love, I can’t half!
Lara: Well thank you so much for coming and best of luck with the race.
Kitty: You’re welcome, thank you.
Harry: Lovely to talk to you Kitty.
Kitty: Lovely to meet you. Thank you very much.
Lara: If you would like to find out more about Kitty and the event, it is all there for you online, just go straight to our web site (http://bbc.co.uk/westyorkshire) and check out the details there.
