Classical Music / Update: Sign on the line

SPIT here, the opera-house billboards will say. There are doubtless good reasons for the new Signed Performances in Theatre organisation to use its acronym - such as opening sentences in news stories - but it's the work of SPIT that really catches the eye. It is a group of theatres, performing companies and other arts bodies which have linked up to spread and develop sign-interpreted shows for people who are deaf or hard of hearing.

The practice of signing has gradually become familiar at some of English Touring Opera's venues and at the London Coliseum, and SPIT will have its formal launch before ETO's L'elisir d'amore at Sadler's Wells Theatre on 24 February - a performance which will itself be signed.