Here's to the boys

I consider it a great honour to be chairman of the actors Centre in Covent Garden, and from the moment I took up the post, I promised myself, and the team in the building that I would not be a chairman who was in any way inactive. Some people probably find me a nuisance and an irritation, some like the fact that I'm around. Whatever the thought, I'm determined that during my time in the role, The Actors Centre will increase its profile, and the role it has to play in the lives of so many working actors today.

Primarily I consider this to be of most value to those who are just about to graduate, or those who are in the first few years after graduating, from drama school. This is the time in which you try and find a pattern that will help you through life. A way of combining your first love, acting, with whatever else it is you will do that will support you, as you make the transition from eager hopeful into working actor.

Some of these graduates will  turn into stars, with an endless series of high profile big budget movies and they'll never have to think about how they pay the bills again. But that number is very very small. For most of the 600 graduates leaving drama school this year, work will be sporadic, and finding a lifestyle that allows them to do this work when it's on offer, and yet supports them during their downtime, is key.

We just have had the Alan Bates award at The Actors Centre, and this is the fourth year of my involvement with it. I've been proud and privileged to mentor the winner for the last three years, and it's been great fun. This year we've introduced a new mentoring scheme entitled "You and Me" wherein all six finalists will be paired with a working actor for their first year in the business.

The allocation of mentor and mentoree was made before the decision as to who the winner of the Bates award was, and I was surprised, and yet thrilled, that for the  fourth year running I will be mentoring the winner of the Alan Bates award.

This year it's an absolutely fantastic actor called Luke Dale. In an enormous piece of serendipity he is a Sheffield boy, and indeed so am I. (Actually I'm from Rotherham, but it's much more of a shit hole than Sheffield so I only ever admit to coming from the nearest big city!) Starting out mentoring somebody is incredibly exciting. Defining how it will work, working out what they need, and what they don't need, and what you can do to make their first year in the business more exciting, more rewarding, and hopefully, more fulfilling than it would have been if you hadn't been around.

All that is to come. I know the other actors who are involved in the scheme have already started to make arrangements to see the student they will be mentoring. One of them has already spent two days on a film set with his mentor, and others are making arrangements for coffee, lunch, and hopefully a whole gallimaufry of social engagements.

I know that when I left drama school and stepped out into the profession, that was when I felt the learning really started. To work alongside actors who had successfully carved careers in the business for 15 to 20 years was absolutely fascinating. Here were people who had mortgages, families, cars, and in some cases fame, all of which was as a result of their acting work. I listened to them in the green room. I listened to them on the tour bus, and I listened to them in the dressing room, and I learnt. I learnt about the real things that are involved in the day-to-day running of your life as an actor. They didn't really teach me anything about voice. They didn't really teach me anything about movement. They taught me how to become an actor. A working actor. And I'm glad to say that at the age of 58, some 37 years later, I'm still doing it.

Here's to the new generation of graduates leaving drama school this summer. Here's to Ryan, Calum, Jeremy, Marcus, John, and of course Luke - our six brilliant finalists in the Alan Bates award this year. Here's to their success, but more than that - here's to their survival.

Our Six Bates Finalists

The Alan Bates Award Winner 2015 Luke Dale and yours truly.