The deaf community can be quite direct...

AT FIRST glance, Reunion is your classic TV thriller: a violent convict gets out of prison and is on the war-path, hellbent on exacting revenge on those who landed him in jail.

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Except this emotional four-parter is more than just a cliff-hanger-strewn nail-biter.

Daniel Brennan, a deaf man played by Matthew Gurney, was convicted of the murder of his friend. Shunned by the deaf community but not remotely embraced by the hearing community, he’s caught between two worlds.

Isolated and struggling to come to terms with his past, he reconnects with his estranged daughter Carly, played by Lara Peake.

The stellar cast also sees Shame-less and Bad Sisters star Anne-Marie Duff appear as the traumatised Christine, whose husband was killed by Brennan, while former EastEnders actor Rose Ayling-Ellis, plays her daughter, Miri, who is grieving for a future taken away from her.

What’s groundbreaking is that Reunion was filmed with a deaf and a hearing crew.

"I’m often the only deaf actor in the crew, and I have worked with deaf actors before, but very, very rarely, and this one is the first time I had a deaf crew on set,” says 30-year-old Rose, who won Strictly Come Dancing in 2021 and was the show’s first deaf contestant.

“My biggest challenge was I didn’t have to explain! I had to sit back and let people just get on with it, and I find that really something I’m not used to.”

After so many years navigating the acting industry as the only deaf person in the room, Rose didn’t realise how much she’s had to compensate and outline what she needed. That wasn’t necessary on Reunion.

“I absolutely loved it. It’s really fun to sit back and just do my work,” she says. It wasn’t just the deaf crew that gained from the more level playing field, either.