A Cornish cinema has become one of the first venues in the UK to introduce a new piece of technology which is aimed at helping disabled and hearing-impaired filmgoers.

White River Cinema in St Austell has recently rolled out WatchWord technology, which allows visitors to view subtitles through a pair of smart glasses that come with a handheld controller, which works like a smartphone.

The viewer can see the dialogue appear through the glasses as captions and the handheld controller allows them to change the size, position, colour, focal-length and brightness of the text.

The new technology is aimed at increasing accessibility for those that are hard of hearing and White River Cinema is the only venue in the South West at the present moment that is able to offer this facility.

Speaking about this new innovation, WTW Cinemas’ Will Burt said: “The new technology really frees up the accessibility of the hard of hearing as they can come and watch a screening when they want to now. At the moment, we do subtitled screenings twice a week but with this technology, as long as we’ve got the file for the movie, they can come whenever they like.

“You might have one person wanting the subtitles and another person not wanting subtitles so that will free up who you can go to the cinema with. It’s great freeing technology. The glasses are available to use on near enough all films but none of the live stuff as of yet.

“We’ve looked at where we can do subtitled screenings more often but without effecting the other screenings that we have. So we’ve tried to see what’s the best way around for all customers and this is where we are.”

One of the first people to try out the new technology at the St Austell cinema was local mayor Cllr Colin Hamilton, who was very impressed by the new facility.

He said: “I’ve tried the new glasses kit and I found it very straight-forward to use. It’s very clear in its clarity without interfering with the ability to watch the film.

“After a little bit of adjustment on the nose, you get a choice of different colours to whatever suits you most and you can vary the brightness so it’s very, very flexible. I’d have no hesitation using it, it’s quite a compelling system.

“It’s not uncomfortable and it’s certainly a real asset to have in a cinema. I think the use of it should be rolled out to all cinemas and the community should have this sort of facility available. I spoke to a gentleman earlier who was hard of hearing and he has been very, very supportive of it.

“It’s an exciting experience to go out and see a blockbuster in a cinema rather than seeing it at home on your own TV. I think that it will open up a new world for a small and very important proportion of our community.”