Article #2554

Performing in Dario Fo’s Accidental Death of an Anarchist during A-levels was a lesson in low-art laughs and political anger that unites an audience

It was 1999. I was doing A-levels in Ashfield in Nottinghamshire, the former mining community I depict in my TV series Sherwood. My comprehensive school was one of the biggest in the country, one of a very small number with a working theatre. I wouldn’t be doing what I get to do now without that massive bit of luck.

I started doing loads of acting, and the department decided to do the first A-level drama they’d ever done because there were about a dozen of us who wanted to keep going after GCSEs.

As told to Lindesay Irvine

James Graham’s adaptation of Alan Bleasdale’s Boys from the Blackstuff is on tour until 5 July