The importance of representation on screen

Television has the power to change how we see the world. It can offer us fresh perspectives and help us to understand other people’s experiences in a way that should not be underestimated. That is why representation on screen is so important.

Involving those with a lived experience is a vital part of the process and is exemplified in 2025’s new detective drama Code of Silence which features a lip reading protagonist. One in three (18million+) adults in the UK are deaf, have hearing loss or tinnitus, so a TV programme that shows this experience is particularly significant.

Rose Ayling-Ellis who plays the lead character Alice Brooks in the show has been deaf since birth and explains that: “TV does have a lot of power to show a different world, because you can live in a town and you know everybody – it’s all the same people. You can read a book, but your imagination is based on your environment. But TV breaks through that, it gives you a different world that you didn’t think of, it can give you a new imagination. And I’m thinking how when I was younger, growing up, I didn’t see anyone like me on TV. And I love how it is changing now.”

Watch the cast and crew discuss the making of Code of Silence in this exclusive interview with BAFTA’s David Dougherty and Georgia Bishop:

Writer Catherine Moulten, who is partially deaf and learnt to lip read as a child, acknowledges her own experiences helped when creating this new groundbreaking drama. In particular, she highlights how lip reading is a really complex process that also includes deciphering body language and thinking about context.

She says: “[You’re] taking information from the person’s body language, from what you know about them, from the situation you’re in and you’re piecing all that together. It is kind of a big puzzle, really, to work out what they’re saying to you.

“And it just occurred to me that lip readers are detectives, and it made complete sense that there should be a crime show with a lip reader as a detective.”

And Moulten is not alone in using her own experience as part of the creative process that makes Code of Silence so authentic. Lead actor and former BAFTA Breakthrough Ayling-Ellis reflects: “That experience is naturally there. I’m a deaf person, Alison’s deaf so naturally it’s in there. It’s in my accent, it’s in the way I talk. I’m wearing a hearing aid, it’s in me.”

The magic of filming techniques in creating an authentic experience is also in full effect in Code of Silence. Director Diarmuid Goggins explains a very specific 50 mm lens was used for filming which “gave this kind of dream like [quality]” that “cuts out the background a lot”.

He says: “The sharpness is very narrow and what remains in focus is a very minimal amount and everything else falls away. And for me, it was kind of the way to represent that when Rose spoke to me about lip reading she [says she] kind of cancels the world out… so what we were trying to do is just focus the mind in that she’s cancelling out the noise and the surroundings to be able to focus on the lips and the person to be able to decipher the conversation.”

As well as giving audiences a glimpse into the world of a lip reader Code of Silence has also left a mark on the cast…

Kieron Moore, who plays the role of Liam Barlow in the six part series describes the experience as: “You get transported into this community, the deaf community… I think people watching it will hopefully have that same reaction because it’s just an element of awareness that comes with it…that ability to see people like yourself on screen is just so pivotal.”

And Andrew Buchan, who plays DI James Marsh in the show says: “The deaf community was a community that I didn’t know a great deal about before starting the job, and maybe an audience out there doesn’t really know too much about either. Maybe we’ve got preconceived ideas of the deaf community or misconceptions…it’s just important that we put on screen what we see off screen.”

Finally, Charlotte Ritchie, who plays DS Ashleigh Francis, reflects on the unique opportunity the show creates for audiences to experience someone else’s reality. She says: “We haven’t had a drama that’s been through this lens before, and it’s such, a beautiful demonstration of her specific experience.

“Not only that, but the way that the show is filmed and portrayed, we really do see it from her point of view.”

• Code of Silence is available to watch on ITVX now.

BAFTA is committed to accessibility and is a partner of the TV Access project which advocates for full industry inclusion by 2030. You can read more about this in our Committing to accessibility in the creative industries resource.