JAMIE HALE

Multidisciplinary creative practitioner and cultural leader

One of the 100 most influential disabled people in the United Kingdom (Shaw Trust 2021, 2022)

Not just equality, diversity and inclusion, but autonomy, justice and equity

Bathed in purple light, Jamie Hale lies on their back on the floor in a manual wheelchair, a hospital blanket over their legs, to illustrate their workshops and performances

Yes, it can be hard to get a restaurant table. But it can be impossible if you’re a wheelchair user

Read Jay Rayner’s article about going for lunch with Jamie Hale and the barriers wheelchair users experience (link)

Do you want to know more about improving access? Contact me on jamie@jamiehale.co.uk
Jamie, a white person with dark red hair and a red beard in an electric wheelchair. They are wearing red glasses and a blue check shirt, and are against a white background.

Consultancy and Training

I offer training across disability and general equality, diversity and inclusion, as well as consultancy – where I can work with you and your organisation on access, policies, and processes, making specific recommendations for improvements you can make, benefiting staff, customers and service users alike.

Jamie Hale, a white person with dark red hair and a red beard, in an electric wheelchair. They are wearing a blue denim jacket, and against an outdoor green and black striped background.

Auditing Access

If you have a physical space, whether a theatre, shop, or restaurant, we can work on making that space more accessible for disabled people. Whether your space is already accessible or whether it’s causing challenges, there are always improvements that can be made.

In the centre is a copy of the cover of Shield by Jamie Hale, featuring coloured horizontal stripes and the image of a surgical mask. Round this are five other images. Each has Jamie, a white person with dark red hair and a short red beard. In the first, they are in an electric wheelchair set up to look like a hospital bed, wearing their ventilator mask. In the second, they are in a hospital gown, sat up in their wheelchair looking like a bed, with great wings either side. In the third they are wearing a silver shirt and blue blanket, on their back on the floor in a manual wheelchair. In the fourth they are framed in the screen of a camera, shirtless in profile from elbow upwards in their electric wheelchair. In the fifth, they are in green tones, wearing a ventilator mask and with a mouthpiece in their mouth.

Creative Portfolio and
Current Artistic Work

I am an experienced poet, playwright, director and performer on stages from the Pit at the Barbican to Theatre Royal Stratford East.

I am available for theatre and poetry commissions of new work, and performances of existing work, including the award-winning NOT DYING and upcoming Crip Monologues. I am excited to collaborate on upcoming work.

Jamie Hale, a white person in an electric wheelchair wearing a silver shirt, and Sophie Walter, a white person wearing pink scrubs. The lighting is blue and purple, and Sophie is throwing a leather jacket off to the side of the frame.

Creative Access, Workshops, Creative and Leadership Coaching, and Mentoring

I bring my multidisciplinary creative and organisational practice to consultancy, development and mentoring. This includes creative access consultancy, custom creative and career-focused workshops for disabled and non-disabled people, editing advice and guidance, and sensitivity reading.

I can also provide Access to Work-funded workplace strategy coaching for disabled and neurodivergent people.

about jamie hale

Jamie Hale is a queer / crip artist, curator, poet, writer, screenwriter, playwright, actor, facilitator, trainer and director, policy analyst and CEO. This is otherwise known as ‘busy’, ‘interdisciplinary’, or ‘indecisive’.

They create poetry, comedy, scriptwriting, and drama for page, stage, and screen. In Feb 2021, they won the Evening Standard Future Theatre Fund Award in Directing/Theatre-Making for their solo show, NOT DYING. They have since performed it across the UK and screened it internationally. Verve Poetry Press published their first poetry pamphlet, Shield, in Jan 2021. They have an original screenplay in development with Channel 4.

Hannah Gadsby described NOT DYING as “fantastic”. Jack Thorne called them “an extraordinary voice”. The Jerwood Foundation named their 2021-2022 fellows, including Jamie, as the “leading lights of British poetry”. In 2021 and 2022, the Shaw Trust listed them as one of the 100 most influential disabled people in the UK.

Jamie also founded CRIPtic Arts. CRIPtic is an award-winning organisation committed to developing and programming work by deaf and disabled people. CRIPtic achieves this through showcasing work, building creative networks, and using research and training to change access in the arts sector.

Policy research, development and analysis are also central to Jamie’s work. They are CEO at Pathfinders Neuromuscular Alliance – a disabled people’s user-led organisation. Jamie also chairs Lewisham Disabled People’s Commission. Here, they conduct original research into the experiences of deaf and disabled people in the borough, and reporting on these to effect change within the Council.

Alongside their development of CRIPtic, Jamie specialises in disabled leadership research and training, including running Incubate, an annual course for emerging disabled leaders and through their dissertation exploring Developing Disabled Leaders in the Non-Profit Sector.

Contact Jamie directly (link)