TV 'needs more disabled actors'

The BBC has been challenged to cast more disabled actors in primetime drama, to reflect better the make up of the audience.

At a meeting at Television Centre on Wednesday evening, organised by staff group BBC Ability, programme makers were urged to be 'less scared of difference' and to broaden their search for acting talent.

'Around ten million people in the UK have some kind of disability but that's not mirrored in the drama they see,' said Martyn Sibley, social media entrepreneur and co-editor of online magazine Disability Horizons, who himself has spinal muscular atrophy.

There was a call for more disabled actors to appear in high profile shows like Waking the Dead Shannon Murray, who works full time in the BBC's legal department and is also a model and a trained actor, thought that soaps, one-off dramas and continuing series should include, as a matter of course, more main characters who just happened to be disabled.

Read more of the BBC article HERE.