Thanks both. I'm playing the files via a USB stick, which does allow me to turn the subtitles on and off when I use files created via StreamFab, so I'm assuming that means that my smart TV does support the subtitle format.
As I mentioned above, I know how to directly render subtitles to the films but I want the ability to turn them on and off, e.g. if there's a moment where I can't hear something, it will allow me to put them on for a short period but I don't want to have them on all the time, as it is very distracting to watch a film with subtitles when you don't need them.