Ten years ago, Ardent launched their first production, Flowers of the Forest by John Van Druten, at the Jermyn Street Theatre in London. It was an ambitious production for the new company and the little theatre, a period drama with two timelines and a cast of eleven. I was lucky enough to be part of the company and, for once, have only happy memories. It’s an unusual production that doesn’t have some backstage drama, but we left the church hall rehearsal and squashed into the two dressing rooms of the basement at Jermyn Street without a hitch. This was a good team. And I wondered, how was it ..read more

Coming from a small forest town with very few opportunities for creatives and a place that was culturally dry and conservative, I knew I had to make a move to London. Like so many young creative people today, I dreamt of one day working, living and thriving in the big city. I did just that, and goodness me, it has taught me a lot. Throughout the blog, I will share what worked for me and my love for London's creative scene and what makes working class creatives in London so unique. In short, you could see this as a love letter to working-class Londoners. Working-class creatives like myself are ..read more

Having worked for almost 20 years as a lecturer in HE I have seen incredible changes in the cultural landscape of arts education here in the UK. When I began, there was a clear investment in the arts, not only financially but in educational and creative spaces at all stages. There were multiple opportunities for young people to engage in the arts at school be it funded music lessons and art clubs or drama and dance being taught as compulsory curriculum in secondary schools. Sadly, we are now operating in a very different world. Arts funding has been steadily and systematically eroded from edu ..read more

You will undoubtedly have heard much discussion about the productivity gap which exists in the UK. It is so depressing to hear politicians casually slagging off UK workers behind closed doors. Instead of talking frankly, constructively and passionately as intelligent adults about what the issue is and how we resolve it. Let’s be clear. There is absolutely a productivity gap. It started around the time of the great financial crash of 2008, and has got steadily worse ever since. Governments of the last twelve years allowed themselves to be manipulated by education “influencers” and lobbyists wh ..read more

Running a theatre company, whatever the size, requires patience, passion, and perseverance. Running a theatre company that still relies on project-to-project funding, no salaries for either director or always under the constant threat of closure is just…well, I’ll leave that up to all your imaginations. For eight years now, the company has been building steadily, producing work that we are immensely proud of, and which has been produced in London as well as the regions. Our Ardent8 programme has supported sixteen graduates thus far, with a further eight just beginning their journey, and this ..read more

I get levelling up, I do. My personal political leanings are all about the redistribution of wealth. For far too long, too few people have held the purse strings at the expense of those who work hard to put money in the purse. But the approach to arts funding in this country, and across other sectors, seems to be about levelling down in order to level up. The recent RMT strike is a good example as the media fell over itself to compare train worker salaries to that of nurses. The point is not to drag wages down to the lowest level; it’s about investing in the underpaid nurses to bring them up ..read more

Martin Daniels talks about his 70 years in the business. I was 15 when I started acting. I was studying for my O’Levels and at that time, I was a member of Manchester's Unnamed Society, run by playwright Frank Sladen-Smith. He gave me the opportunity to play a variety of parts with members who later became well known, people like Doris Speed, Brian Trueman and Ivan Beavis. The following year, I left Manchester to join Southport Theatre Company, aged 16, to be assistant stage manager and play young parts. After almost a year, I felt I should go to drama school and went to the Central School of ..read more

Solution-focused therapist Juan Carlos Gouveia explains the many hidden benefits in going to a show. Maybe you’ve found yourself walking along as a theatre performance has finished and the audiences flow out onto the streets, talking excitedly, chattering, laughing, maybe singing, in the aftermath of a collective event that has in some way affected them. As someone who works with the mind, I am fascinated to find out what happens during the theatre experience and why, so that we can understand the positive benefits of theatre to us all. Let’s start with some facts. Last year, an extensive UK T ..read more

“..a brutally honest working-class manifesto which is as tumultuous and bohemian as any theatrical memoir you might have ever read..” George Rodosthenous, University of Leeds, UK By February 2014 when I walked out of RADA, I had been there, leading the MA courses, for ten years. I was proud of having been the first leader of their new diploma in Directing (I later succeeded in having it converted into an MA) and of founding their only Acting MA, Theatre Lab. But for my final two or three years I had been at odds with the management and especially with the Principal. Before me lay a vista of r ..read more

Photo Jimmy Lee Photography “Potential should be based on talent not net worth” I was brought up in a pub, in a small town on the outskirts of Bournemouth, which meant my teenage life consisted of hoovering alcohol-stained carpets, polishing bar tables, emptying ash trays, and bottling up. School was close and massive and comprehensive. I hated it. I was completely lost, out of my depth and struggling. My mum had always brought my brother and I up to have good manners, and because of this, I always spoke ‘well.’ What this manner of speech did, however, was create a persona that was fraudulent ..read more