When Hattie Morahan won the Natasha Richardson Award for Best Actress at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards last Sunday, the papers were quick to draw attention to the fact that she had received no formal acting training. Despite her recent success, however, Morahan did intimate that drama school might have been a wise route to take: “Because I didn’t go to drama school, I didn’t start in the business with any toolbox apart from enthusiasm and instinct. I’d throw everything at a part and sometimes realise that I had hit my limits.”
With auditions for drama school looming, many potential students will be debating whether to enter into a profession which Nicholas Hytner this week said was “on a knife’s edge”.
Morahan notes that “fewer films are made, so it’s harder to get on television, because all the film actors are doing TV. And TV budgets are cut…In theatre, it seems that artistic directors spend 90 per cent of their day on bended knee begging either the Arts Council or wealthy people to give them money.” However, it isn’t all negative as she argues that “even in these times London is the most exciting I have seen in years…people are unafraid to push the boundaries, and I keep seeing the most extraordinary work.”
Much like drama school, Audition Doctor provides a relaxed space in which students can have what Morahan perhaps wished she had had before stepping onto a professional stage – the opportunity to test limits and the chance to experiment.
When this weekend’s Observer asked Simon Russell Beale: “Will people continue to go to drama school, given how much debt they’ll now incur?” He replied: “I’m sure they will. But that isn’t a very good answer, is it? I get letters from students wanting money all the time. We all do: ask any actor. It’s heartbreaking.”
While drama school might now seem like a financially dubious choice, like with any vocation, training is paramount. Competition is stiff and Audition Doctor gives you a relaxed space in which to fail, explore and discover. The confidence that comes with being willing to fail and test boundaries is something that Tilly actively fosters. It is this quality that will be sought after not only at drama schools, but also in an industry whose members are currently desperate to prove to the Government that their livelihoods are worthwhile and that their work is not an exorbitant extravagance only to be enjoyed in times of affluence. It has enormous influence on the spiritual well-being of the country’s citizens. Unfortunately, however, as Sarah Sands opined in The Evening Standard: “spiritual health does not come under the Treasury brief.”
