The Diversity School Initiative

It’s been 20 years since I graduated from Drama school and, whilst I’ve long  since hung up my acting clogs, I still remember that feeling of fear ahead of every audition. The fear that came with being presented with a character breakdown that read 'Errol, twenty-five years old from Jamaica' or 'Samuel, the son of a f...

Training:

I personally would recommend going to a drama school if you have the finance and 3 years to spare. Both of which I currently do not. If I knew I wanted to be an actor before I was 18 I would have definitely tried to get into a drama school. I, however, was in my second year at university when I realized some...

On Saturday 28th October, we went to Royal Court’s Day of Action. The event which was held in response to the Weinstein revelations, offered a place for people in our industry to safely and anonymously report their experiences of being subjected to abuses of power. There were two parts of the day, a town hall meeting...

(Jenny (centre) in rehearsal for The Madame Macadam Travelling Theatre. Photo by Craig Fuller) 

Love & Scandal – well, that got you reading.  Actually, it’s the name of the café where Steven Kavuma and I met to talk about The Diversity School Initiative and about the various developments at Bristol Old Vic Theatre...

Social stigma and mental health go together hand in hand, and have been with us for centuries as the arts have. It is of utmost importance that diversity is a core element of every society, not just to promote fairness, but also to actively promote individuality. Therefore, the relevance of diversity, arts and mental...

BAME is a word that has recently been latched onto my identity, and frankly very unwillingly. When I introduce myself to people I do not say I am a BAME actor, I say I am simply an actor but when applying for jobs roughly 90% of work I apply for has this word, ‘BAME’ in the description. I have a love hate for the ‘new...

We are in the midst of a great drought. A drought of plus-size performers on our stages, and I think it’s running creative industries dry.

I was 17 years old when my drama teacher told me the reason that I couldn’t be part of the main cast in our play was because my hair colour wouldn’t be consistent with that of the r...

Why bother? – Why should we try and ‘make it big’ in an industry where white supremacy, class elitism, poor representations of queerness, and general misogyny (among many prejudices) control theatre and keep us in the margins?

Because we cannot make a difference on the periphery of an industry which controls representa...

At the moment I'm in a month-long run of a children's Christmas show in which I play a fairy and a sock. It's absolutely ridiculous and I love it. A few days ago two Chinese kids came in and as soon as they saw me onstage, their faces lit up with excitement and recognition. YES, I AM LIKE YOU! YES, I AM ONSTAGE! AND Y...

Once upon a time I was told by a senior tutor from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama that they receive approximately 6000 applications, in any given year, for about 20 spaces on their BA Acting Course. 6000 people vying for 20 places. That’s just for one UK accredited drama school out of the other 22. If yo...