Adam Frith
The Worshipful Company of Skinners, Dancers & Actors
An issue I am hugely passionate about is the problem of access to the performing arts for those who happen to come from working class backgrounds. This is one of the reasons I became a volunteer mentor for the charity Arts Emergency.
According to recent research,
Only 10% of actors in the profession come from working class backgrounds.
Just 16% of people in creative jobs come from working class backgrounds.
I know from personal experience how incredibly difficult it has been to access and forge a career path in the performing arts. I would like to share below some of my personal reflections on the obstacles I have faced - both internal and external in nature.
In my experience coming from a working class background is not something you move up from or leave behind - rather it continues to run through you like the lettering in one of those old-fashioned sticks of rock you can get at the seaside. It is also my experience that being from a working class background is a formative experience that continues to operate within and act upon you - sometimes in negative ways. It is something I still struggle with.
THE IMPORTANCE OF IMAGINATION, VISUALISATION AND BELIEF
Let's start with a basic. How can you actually become any kind of artist, without first imagining and then seeing the possibility of it?
It is very difficult to imagine there might even be the possibility of a career path in the performing arts when no one in your family, circle of friends or indeed in the entire network of people you know is doing anything other than traditional jobs. It takes a lot to embark on a different path to what everyone else you know is doing and what society expects of you, which sometimes feels like just get a job - any job.
I left school when I was 15 years old with only four GCSEs to my name. For the next 4 years I did an apprenticeship in the printing industry. On the completion of my apprenticeship, when I was 20, I was made redundant. Around this time I looked within and found that I wanted to do something different. The catalyst for this change in my life was due to a series of devastating deaths in my family and friendship circle. I mention this, not because it is really a path that can be copied but because it was transformative and it made me question the meaning of life and how I might spend my allotted time on this earth. I was also numbed by grief and in search of something that could make me feel again. When I looked within and questioned what I might want to do I remembered the moments I felt most alive and the memory of doing a school play came to mind. Funny how something I did for a lark actually became so important for me! I decided to try and get that feeling again so I decided I would apply to join Leicester Haymarket Young People's Theatre. Just applying was intimidating for me. I thought it was something only for middle-class people, but I applied anyway. My two years there was an amazing experience. We did weekly workshops and performed plays to the public in the studio theatre. Looking back now I have to say the level of work we were exposed to was rigorous and to a very high standard. I performed in a full-length production of The Caretaker, which a professional theatre critic came to. Afterwards he told us it was on a par with a professional production he had reviewed recently. Of course he might have just been saying that to be kind and encouraging but the important thing is that we gained belief. It is not a coincidence that all three of us who were in that production have since gone on to become professional actors. We gained belief and in the doing, within a supportive environment, began to dare to imagine that actually being a professional performer was something achievable. Imagine that, people like us, people like me, can become actors!
Whilst I was a member of Leicester Haymarket Young People's Theatre I also applied to do A-Level Theatre Studies and Dance at Melton Mowbray College of Further Education. Applying to do A-Levels was a big deal for me. No one in my family had done a degree or A-Levels so I used to think that further and higher education was not for people like me. I felt it necessary to go and knock on the staffroom door at my old school to ask my old English teacher, Mrs March, if she thought I was capable of doing an A-Level. Thankfully she told me she thought I was, and indeed capable of much more. Everyone needs a Mrs March! If you might be a young person reading this, have a think about who might be one of your supporters. Who are the people that can help you imagine a future you would want for yourself? Who can help you believe in that vision and help you actualise it? A lot of it has to start with the self.
THE IMPORTANCE OF RESOURCES, PERSEVERANCE AND ROLE MODELS
In the mid-90s after doing my A-Levels I won a place at The Laban Centre For Movement & Dance, London. I loved acting but also found that I loved dancing and was advised to pursue dance first and then acting at a later date, as it could not be done the other way around. Back then all students who got onto undergraduate degree courses at university had their tuition fees paid for in full via government grants. All students also received maintenance grants to help with the cost of living. How civilised! All students that is except for those who won places to study acting or dance degrees at the nation's finest drama and dance conservatoires . If you successfully auditioned for a place, against incredible odds, at one of those you got zilch, nada, nothing from the Conservative government of the day. My tuition fees were £6,995 for the first year. Those fees were 15% higher for year two and 15% higher again for year three. I cannot begin to tell you how impossible the task of raising those fees looked. It looked like an insurmountable mountain to climb without even taking into account the additional costs on top of living in London. In Leicestershire everyone from the county who won a place at a top drama or dance school had to then audition against each other in the hope of winning one of the six available scholarships of £6,000. I was so angry with what I felt was the unfairness of the government of the day, Leicestershire County Council's selection process and the ridiculousness of having to audition in front of a panel of council officers - all of whom had zero experience in the performing arts. After my audition a council official asked me if I, at 21, might be too old to pursue a career in the performing arts. I could not contain my youthful contempt or rage and told him he didn't posses the necessary experience or knowledge of the field to even pose the question! Surprise, surprise I didn't get one of the six scholarships. I did however make such a stink writing letters of complaint with the help of my local MP that a scholarship was eventually found. Now I just had to find £1000 more for the remaining tuition fees and to pay rent and support myself in London. There was no bank of mum and dad as my mum had died a few years before and my dad was made redundant and was by this time on disability benefits. I wrote scores of letters by hand to charities, foundations, wealthy individuals and even Leicester City Football Club and Englebert Humperdinck! Nearly all my letters came to nothing except for the notable exceptions of £800 support from The Prince's Trust and £1000 pounds from Alderman Newtons Educational Trust of Leicester. I now had enough to cover the first year of tuition fees, but zero money to pay rent or support myself. I knew doing part time work whilst studying would not be feasible as the 9am-6pm contact hours before the academic work and evening and weekend rehearsals would not allow for it. On paper I still did not have enough money to embark on this path I so wanted to do. What to do?
I happened to have borrowed Kirk Douglas's autobiography, The Ragman's Son, from Leicester City Centre Library. I read a passage in it where the penniless young wannabe actor had won a place at one of America's most prestigious acting schools. The problem was, like me, he had raised only enough money to cover the first year's fees. He decided to turn up on the first day, not knowing if he could do more than one year but with the hope it would all work out somehow. On reading this I resolved to do the very same! I took a huge leap of faith. Once in London and after starting my professional training I kept writing letters to charities, and foundations and I had the great fortune to gain support from one of The City of London's livery companies. The Worshipful Company of Skinners supported me with £4500. £500 for each term over the full three years of my degree.
Successfully winning the scholarships detailed above, writing to scores of charities and foundations, making a nuisance of myself and the perseverance to raising the fees to put myself through dance school, to this day is one of the achievements I am most proud of. I am also eternally grateful to the organisations I have listed for the help and generosity I received along the way. I couldn't have done it without their help.
What I have detailed above is just one example of what someone from a working class background had to do to simply get on the starting line of a vocational training at a top performing arts school. All that effort just to be able to begin. The path I took, as incredibly difficult as it was then, is even harder now and some of the opportunities I had then are sadly no longer available today. What I am trying to convey though in sharing my story is that the value of perseverance and not taking no for an answer can take you a very long way indeed. Perhaps beyond what you initially thought would be possible. It's also important to find role models who've trod a similar path before you. There might only be 10% of people from working class backgrounds in the performing arts, but that is still one in ten. Find those people and find out how they got access. Inspiration is important. That, and dogged determination and perseverance.
DOING YOUR ART AND KEEPING THE LECCY ON
If you're good and lucky enough to win a place at dance or drama school and tenacious enough to complete the arduous training, one of the most difficult obstacles to navigate skilfully is moving from the tight structure of spending several hours per day dedicated to your craft to then having zero structure and with ambitions to break into the industry. What really differentiates working class graduate actors from peers from wealthier backgrounds is debt and independent wealth - and/or material familial support that provides a cushion. Many middle class peers of mine left dance/drama school without debt. Not only that, some, had no need to get a job and had the time to dedicate themselves full-time to securing acting work, taking classes and further training. It goes without saying that it much harder to pursue acting as a career if you have no choice but to get a full-time job purely to pay the rent and other bills. The hours you can dedicate to the creative career you imagined for yourself get severely curtailed and it's easy for drift to set in. If you're lucky enough to get work - perhaps with a fledgling dance or theatre company you might well be going straight from your full time work to evening and weekend rehearsals. This is incredibly hard and tiring and not that sustainable if you happen to have a partner too. I did this for a number of months working for a dance theatre company and towards the end of the project I was physically exhausted - it was at this point that a middle class peer in the company asked me if I really loved dance because my energy seemed lower and less enthusiastic than theirs. This was a person who did not work in the day and who was supported financially. The difference between our material circumstances was stark - but completely invisible to them. I think many of the obstacles that working class people face are quite invisible to others.
EVEN GREATER ODDS STACKED AGAINST YOU
In 1999 I auditioned for RADA. I went as far as it is possible to go in the audition process without gaining a place. Three rounds of auditions and the final workshop which the intake of the year is selected from. I think the odds are something like 3000:1 of applicants to those offered places. In the final workshop I was really struck by the lack of anyone in the room who seemed to be from a background like me. Everyone else, it seemed, was either clearly middle class or a foreign student with the means to pay the fees privately. All very talented it must be said, but the majority no more than me. Back then, and it's different now, but back then you had to let drama schools know how you were going to pay the fees should you be offered a place. Drama schools back then knew which applicants would be full-fee paying and by what means and they also knew who they would have had to support financially. I'm not a statistician, but I think this must mean further odds are stacked against people from working class backgrounds who didn't have the means to pay fees in order to attend our greatest institutions. I would argue that working class kids were not auditioning for one of the 30 places available - we were auditioning for one or two of the coveted scholarship places. Nicholas Barter, RADA Principal back then, told our bunch of final hopefuls that if he knew tomorrow who was going to be offered a place then they'd know tomorrow, but said it can take up to six weeks for a decision to be made. It took me seven weeks to receive the news via a personal letter from him letting me know how close I was and with encouragement to continue. I found out a year later that the lad who won the scholarship left the course half way through the first year. Perhaps even with a scholarship his obstacles were insurmountable. That near miss at RADA, as you can no doubt gather really hurt and lingered for some time. But it was also the impetus for me to audition for our best drama schools again almost 20 years later, this time with the means to pay the fees. Finally, in my late 40s, I received three offers.
CONFIDENCE, BODILY DISPOSITIONS AND IMPOSTER SYNDROME
When I discovered the notion of Habitus via the academics Pierre Bourdieu and Loïc Wacquant it really blew my mind and made visible some of the previously invisible differences between people who happen to be from upper/middle class and those who happen to be from working class backgrounds. People from wealthier backgrounds, especially those who were privately educated, just hold themselves differently in their bodies and speak more confidently than many people who come from state educated backgrounds. There is something of an innate confidence within the bodies and voices of more privileged people. This is, in my opinion, a very valuable currency that many working class people simply have not been given the same opportunity to acquire. This shows up in audition rooms, rehearsal rooms and can also act as an internal obstacle. I met a young man at an audition who was clearly privileged and oozing with confidence. It was visible in his body, movement, and voice, which commanded attention and the space. He was also very inexperienced, but it didn't matter. You could see that he actually belonged in the space of the famous institution we were auditioning for. I can command space too in the same way - but my goodness I cannot tell you how much internal work it has taken to get that place. It does not come naturally. I still have that inner 20 year old inside who had to knock on the staff room door at his old comprehensive school to ask his former English teacher if she felt he was capable of doing an A-Level. Spaces like RADA and The National Theatre actively operate on people. You can walk in them and feel that you belong there. My guess is that many people from working class backgrounds do not feel they belong. Rather they feel the weight of them and have to do more internal work than people from privileged backgrounds do. At Central School of Speech of Drama I was met by a haughty, middle class, man behind a desk for the interview stage. His opening line to me was not a polite greeting, nor a question. It was a frosty Is confidence a problem? I believe he was unknowingly making a comment on my difference to him in terms of class rather than my ability. I could be wrong. Maybe I had a bad day that day, but that is what it felt like and it was uncomfortable.
LUCK
I think it goes without saying that those from wealthier backgrounds simply have more resources. Not just financial resources, resources can mean people around you that you can call upon to help. Family or friends already in the business, for example. Some people are wealthier in terms of inner resources too. As I mentioned above, privately educated actors simply have a certain deportment, confidence of voice, and command of space that people from working class backgrounds simply have never had chance to acquire. Time is a resource. Financially independent people are richer in time. People who have not needed to take on debt to become a trained performer are wealthier than those who have and who need to dedicate time to paying debt off rather than pursuing their chosen craft on more of a full time basis. All of the above. All of these resources load the dice and have a tangible effect on luck. Luck is a massive factor in deciding which careers take off and which do not.
CONCLUSION
What I have attempted to do above is make visible some of the common obstacles people from working class backgrounds have to face and surmount if they are to become working professionals in the performing arts. There is a danger, of course, that in pointing to the difficulties people from working class backgrounds face both entering and maintaining a career in the performing arts that a focus on the great positives, which come with being from a working class background are missed. We have very rich lives to draw upon in our work and incredible stories to tell. Many of us also have a great breadth of experience that people who were born into so called higher classes just cannot access, I think, in the same way. I love that I can be an insider on the streets and pubs on the rough council estate which I grew up. Having been a professional dancer I can equally be an insider at Sadler's Wells supping white wine and chatting about post-modern dance with middle class people. I have also worked closely with people who have titles like Sir or Baronet in front of their names. Titled people very rarely access the same breadth of lived experience by moving down the class ladder - is that even possible? I like to think of my breadth of experience as a superpower to draw on when it comes to my work as a an actor.
Lastly, and this is very important contextually, class intersects with gender, race and sex. I might be working class but I also carry some immense privileges in being a white, able bodied, neurotypical, cis-gender male. My journey into and in the performing arts has been full of external and internal challenges, hand-to-mouth living at times and great difficulty, but if I happened to be born black or brown, a woman, disabled, neurodiverse or be non-binary or trans it would have much harder. Some people, of course, can be working class and all of these things. So in terms of access let's champion and advocate for all who struggle with access, marginalisation and glass ceilings and not let others divide us - especially in the current political climate and social media age of pigeon-holing, oversimple identification and othering, which is always reductive of the vast landscape which comes in the form of every individual. Be an advocate for change until we have a level playing field. Listening to other people's stories can help. This has been some of mine.