Sylvia Young

She told The Stage in an interview in 2003 that she was apprehensive at first about “the academic side” because of her own lack of necessary qualifications, adding that her aim was to prove that a theatre school experience would “not be detrimental to a child’s general education”. The school’s consistently high GCSE results confirmed her ability to choose the right educators to complement her organisational and pastoral skills.

Growing up in Hackney in the 1940s, the eldest of nine children, Young was a bright child, with a passion for reading, opera and classical music. She spent a lot of time at her local library, reading plays. She even joined an ad-hoc drama group of other children and later attended classes at Mountview, then in north London, but her aspiration to act was sabotaged by crippling stage fright.

She left school at 16 and went to work in Stoke Newington Library, whose bosses decided she was a communist after she travelled to Moscow specifically to see the Soviet Army Ensemble. She married Norman Ruffell, a telephone engineer, in her 20s and became a stay-at-home mum, raising two young girls.

Once her drama classes had morphed into a properly constituted school in 1981, it took on 27 full-time pupils, with their time equally divided between academic work and theatre disciplines. Over four decades, it moved from Drury Lane to a former church school building in Marylebone, and then in 2010 to state-of-the-art premises, with rehearsal rooms, a recording studio, a large canteen and two courtyard gardens in Nutford Place, near Marble Arch.

Young always defied the stereotype of the pushy stage-school matriarch, cautioning her kids to be wary of stardom and stressing what she called “the downside of fame”. She said in one interview: “I’m ambitious for our kids but I’m not competitive. The confidence they gain here will stand them in good stead in their adult career, whatever it turns out to be.”

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Her common-sense attitude was widely admired in the industry and yielded astonishing results. Casting director David Grindrod, speaking to The Stage in 2003, said of her: “[Sylvia] is always fair, honest and upfront to deal with, the kids she represents are totally professional and know exactly what they are doing. Her name had become a kind of seal of approval in the business.”

Trevor Jackson, head of casting at Cameron Mackintosh Ltd, endorsed this view: “Her kids don’t get crazy ideas about themselves. The drug of fame can be so corrosive for young performers but Sylvia’s kids invariably move on to successful adult careers because they are well balanced and grounded.”

Unsurprisingly, Young was always a great champion of talent regardless of means. If she felt a child wanting a place at the school was truly talented but came from a disadvantaged background, she would move heaven and earth to secure that child a place.

Indeed, for many years, she ran an annual scholarships scheme in association with The Stage from the early 1990s until 2020, offering fully funded places at her school to dozens of young performers.

Well into her 80s, the diminutive Young continued to be involved with the school – now run by her daughter Alison – as the chair of directors. She told The Stage in 2022: “I should have retired 20-odd years ago, but I just love what I do so much. I love being involved here."

Sylvia Young was born on September 18, 1939, and died on July 30, aged 85. She received an OBE in 2005 for her service to the arts. Young is survived by her husband, Norman, and her daughters, Frances and Alison.