Britain’s National Theatre is offering audience members with hearing loss a service which displays captions on smart glasses during performances.

The glasses display a synchronised transcript of the dialogue and sound from a production directly onto the lenses of the glasses, giving users the freedom to experience performances without the distraction of having to follow an interpreter or separate script, or missing out as they cannot hear much of what is happening during the show.

The theatre has been testing and refining the devices with audiences who are deaf or hard of hearing for a year, and are now making the glasses available for every seat at every performance.

The technology uses custom-built voice-following software to track precisely where the show is in the script, with further guidance from lighting, sound and video cues unique to the production. The Epson Moverio BT-350 smart glasses were developed specifically with arts and culture in mind and were chosen for ease-of-use, durability and accessibility, the National Theatre said. The captions are displayed on the lenses of the glasses and the typeface size, colour and position can be customised by the user.

“For someone hard of hearing, these glasses represent the difference between being able to go to the theatre whenever you choose and staying away,” said Dave Finch, a hard-of-hearing member of the testing group. “Quite a lot of deaf people haven’t even contemplated that an evening at the theatre is possible, but these glasses represent a fantastic step forward.”

The National Theatre says further development of the software is planned to allow audiences to enjoy everything from in-depth talks with directors and actors to drama workshops for young performers and families.