The Stage

Trained for longevity

Published Wednesday 16 June 2004 at 11:55 by Nick Smurthwaite

RADA has stayed at the top of the drama school field for a hundred years and seeks to imbue its students with the same ability to last and prosper in the industry by ensuring they are thoroughly equipped for the modern age, writes Nick Smurthwaite

Any organisation that has been going a hundred years is vulnerable to charges of conservatism at best, fossilisation at worst.

But there is little outward sign that the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art has let the grass grow under its feet. If anything, the Rolls Royce of Britain’s drama schools seems more forward-looking than ever before in its century-long history.

“Our aim is to set fashion, not follow it,” says the principal Nicholas Barter. “It is harder these days to have a sustainable career in the business because so many young artists get taken up too quickly, given a lot of responsibility, then forgotten in a matter of weeks.

“We’re in the business of training actors for long careers, not flash-in-the-pan stardom. Our students have to be ready to meet all the technological challenges of the 21st century.”

One way of ensuring that RADA’s third-year students come into the profession with a grounded attitude about what they have to offer and their chances of employment is the school’s ‘buddy’ system, introduced six years ago by actor and RADA graduate David Rintoul.

Similar to university’s mentoring system, this is a means of building bridges between the students and the real world, in order to provide moral support and encouragement.

“When I first started acting 30 years ago there was a strong and supportive regional theatre circuit which embraced new talent,” explained Rintoul. “But now that has more or less broken down, so I thought the buddy system might help fill the void.

“It’s a very informal sort of thing. Along with RADA’s registrar and a student co-ordinator, I try to make connections between particular students and particular buddies, then it is up to them to arrange to get together after a show and to be sensitive to the individual student’s needs.

“Sometimes nothing comes of it at all and other times it works brilliantly and may result in a particular student walking straight into a job after leaving the school.”

At first there were too many third-year students chasing too few buddies but now Rintoul says he has about 70 professionals on his books, which means each student has two or three buddies each.

“One of the good things about it, from both vantage points, is that older actors become aware of what’s going on with the new intake,” says Rintoul. “When you go to see your buddy in a student show, you’re not just seeing him or her, you’re seeing a dozen other students actors. Like it or not, you are connecting with the younger generation.”

As anyone who heard the recent Radio 4 programme marking the school’s centenary will know, RADA has changed unrecognisably since its pre-war ‘finishing school’ days.

Tales of the then principal noisily taking afternoon tea in his box at the rear of the Vanbrugh Theatre, apparently heedless of distracting his students on stage, seem hilariously far removed from today’s lean, mean theatre machine.

With its extensive £32m rebuilding and refurbishment programme almost complete - a new extension to their Chenies Street premises opens next year - the academy has gone into the 21st century fully equipped to take on the myriad challenges of the entertainment industry in the digital age.

“It is important for us to have teachers who are in touch with our industry, some of whom are working in it, bringing their experiences to us,” says principal Barter.

In its original form, RADA was founded by the great Edwardian actor-manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree, whose aim was to provide London with a place of training to match the famous Paris Conservatoire. From the outset he stipulated that the school should be self-supporting but non profit-making, with scholarships available to those who couldn’t afford the fees.

By the end of 1905 his peers acknowledged the success of the enterprise by agreeing to serve on its ruling council. They included two playwrights, JM Barrie and Arthur Pinero, and two other actor-managers, Johnston Forbes-Robertson and Squire Bancroft. Later on they were joined by WS Gilbert, Irene Vanbrugh and, most importantly, George Bernard Shaw, who became a major benefactor as well as the academy’s guiding spirit.

In its first decade, RADA launched the careers of such enduring talents as Athene Seyler, Miles Malleson, Fabia Drake, Cedric Hardwicke and Robert Atkins. Shortly before she died in 1990 aged 101, Seyler recalled her inauspicious audition in 1908.

“In those days it was the hallmark of a good actress that you were very lovely. I must have been one of the first who wasn’t, so it came as no surprise when the person auditioning me said ‘I’m sorry, Miss Seyler, but I’m afraid you have no qualifications for the stage,’ and I replied ‘I know what you mean, sir, I’m very plain.’”

Athene Seyler’s talent for comedy prevailed, however, and she went on to have a career that was almost as enduring as the academy itself.

Half a century on, Glenda Jackson wrote off to RADA for an audition “because it was the only drama school I’d heard of”. When she was accepted and moved down to London from her hometown of Nottingham, her mother was convinced she would be sold into the white slave trade and never heard of again.

It was at a time, in the late fifties, when RADA started to embrace the provinces with a vengeance. Suddenly BBC-style received pronounciation (RP) found itself challenged by regional accents from the likes of Albert Finney, Anthony Hopkins, John Thaw and Peter O’Toole.

Surviving the rigorous and relentless demands of RADA’s three-year course - which includes fencing, dancing, movement, singing, voice training, Alexander technique, as well as learning lines on an almost daily basis - lays the foundations for surviving in the increasingly competitive world outside.

“Many of our first-years have no idea how hard it is to train as an actor,” says Barter. “Some of them may have been big fish in small ponds and suddenly they are thrown together with 33 other people who are just as talented as they are, which sends some of them into a panic.”

The recruitment process for the new intake lasts six months and involves scouring the provinces for talent.

“We are one of the few drama schools which holds auditions in the regions and we work with local organisations to try and attract kids to the idea of drama and backstage training. This helps us to reach people with disabilities or people from ethnic minorities who might feel that RADA is too posh and not accessible to them.

“We see every person who applies for the acting degree, then whittle it down to some 400. The third stage is workshops, where we see them together in groups of 16. By this time any nerves will have disappeared and they become a group of actors working together.”

It sounds, from what Nick Barter says, that RADA may finally have cast off its old-fashioned, establishment mantle. Would he agree? “Not entirely, no. It continues to be a struggle to convince people outside the industry that RADA is about training actors and technicians for the entertainment industry of today and tomorrow.

“It’s only when you remind them that Steve McFadden (Phil Mitchell in Eastenders), Sean Bean and Joan Collins all trained at RADA that they realise we cater for many different needs and challenges.”

Does he agree with Herbert Beerbohm Tree, the founder of RADA, that you can’t teach acting?

“I think he meant you can’t teach talent. But you can certainly teach the skills whereby that talent communicates itself to the audience. You also have to remind students of the power and resonance of language because in the postmodern world we are rapidly losing our language-based culture in favour of a visual culture.”