Where have all the working-class actors gone?
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Version 0 of 1. On Monday Edward Kemp, the director of Rada, added some interesting arguments to the more general debate on whether a career in the arts is fast becoming the preserve of the wealthy. It is not that they only train posh kids, he claimed, it is that they train kids to be posh, because that is what will get them work. He added that actors are to a significant extent “victims of what people choose to put on our TVs”. He is partly right, but only partly. There is no doubt that the class divide is at its most potent in the context of professions with uncertain income and unstable career progression, especially in the current climate of an increasingly monetised education system whereby children are reduced to mere economic units in the making. With grants no longer available and fees spiralling, it is close to impossible for anyone from a poor background to train as an artist. Arts-funding cuts and slashed council budgets mean that places in local youth schemes are fewer by the day. It would be foolish to pretend that actors such as Dominic West, Damien Lewis and Tom Hiddleston, who all went to Eton – with its 20 productions a year, regular visits to Edinburgh, perfectly equipped 400-seater theatre and luxurious budgets – have had the same opportunities as a kid in Hackney who has to go through a metal detector every morning and is taught in a temporary classroom. It is also no coincidence that the many actors who have noticed the fabric of the profession change over the past few years and have called for a more inclusive profession come from a particular generation. Britain was at its most equal (in terms of Gini coefficients) in 1977. It has been downhill since then. With seasoned industry professionals from Ian McKellen and Helen Mirren to Clare Higgins and Julie Walters voicing similar concerns, it is fanciful to suggest the problem is merely imagined. Kemp is right to point out, however, that the problem is not merely with the supply, but also the demand. He says: “It would be great to have another working-class drama but where are those stories being told? They’re not; it’s shows with dragons or people in tweed suits on bicycles.” Drama school trains one to be able to speak in “heightened RP” in the same way that it will train one to emulate “general American”. So, if the parts are posh, the actors will embody them as such. The “Downton effect” is undoubtedly strong in the industry, but again it is not the whole story. As a stranger to these shores, I find the British – no, that is not entirely fair; the primarily English – preoccupation with class, fascinating. It operates in very complex ways in a theatrical context, with a blurring of lines between class, education, culture and regionality. Many theatre makers use it to easy but cheap effect. There is no reason why Lopakhin in Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard should have a broad West Country accent just because he used to work on the land. There is no reason for the maid in De La Cruz’s House of Desires to be comically northern just because she is a bit of a tart. These are cheap effects – as much a product of class stereotypes as they are of what Komisarjevsky termed “chocolate box naturalism”. The real question is why so many actors choose to take the posh accent they were trained to do outside the theatre or film set and make it the language of their auditions and interviews. Is it because of a lingering sense of shame about their background? Is it a desire to fit in with the, in my experience, largely bourgeois writers, directors, TV execs and commissioners? Perhaps there is a clue in the practice of bestowing titles as the highest accolade in our profession. “You made it. You are hereby officially admitted into the aristocracy.” On this more general point, I cannot accept Kemp’s justification. As the head of arguably the most famous drama school in the world, he is a leader. He has real power and can set, as well as change, industry trends in subtle but significant ways. He can put pressure on the government to fund local youth schemes and art education in the classroom. He can train actors who proudly represent working people, who make the point that culture and education are not exclusive to the wealthy. He can produce living exemplars to demonstrate that intellectual and artistic aspiration is worthwhile, universal and should be accessible to all. |