My Gurus

Jeremy Thomas and the Newcastle Royal Grammar School

When we were 11, my twin brother and I got scholarships to the Newcastle Royal Grammar School (RGS). It’s only with the slight cynicism of now being very much a grown-up that I look back with a certain wonderment at how utterly fine and unremarkable it felt for me and my brother to be two of the few non-white council estate kids in such an establishment. That feeling of not being an outsider, of being fine as I was and am, can only be a testament to the commitment of that venerable institution’s teachers to inclusivity and excellence for all.

Leading the way in that was Head of Drama, the formidable Jeremy Thomas, whose ambition for the work that could be made with young people meant that the rich and regular programme of student shows was populated by complex and challenging work by Shakespeare, Stoppard, The Theatre Workshop and even Ionesco, and site-specific work way before Punchdrunk were making it cool.

Mr Thomas also believed that the best way to engage young people with theatre was to give them the opportunity to make their own work, going toe-to-toe with the School Board every year to ring-fence money for student-originated and directed productions. I look back on my early ‘bold’ theatre choices (specifically directing a production of The Mousetrap, and devising a piece in sixth form about infanticide…) and am stunned and grateful to have had the privilege from an early age of people fighting for the space for artists to grow, however haphazardly.

I can see the direct line of inspiration from the opportunities at school to my own work now at Leicester’s Curve theatre. In April, we launch our inaugural Inside Out Festival, Curve’s first major commitment to the showcasing of work by local artists, with over 100 East Midlands artists and companies forming the ten-day programme. Alongside this, we’ve opened up the building to different art forms, embracing the idea that excellent performance in the 21st Century doesn’t necessarily look like a “well-made play”. We now have an in-house break-dancing academy, a gospel choir that meets weekly, and our first Associate Companies, including New Art Club, with all local artists creating work that fuses elements from dance, interactive technology and storytelling to fashion: something that feels very 21st Century indeed.

Suba Das is Associate Director of Community Engagement at Curve.

Curve’s Inside Out Festival, celebrating the work of the best of the East Midland’s emerging artists runs from 10 – 19 April. For more information visit www.curveonline.co.uk.