Theatre schools are in crisis. More must be done to nurture young talent like Owen Cooper across the country
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s well as the urgent social problems raised by Adolescence – online misogyny and radicalisation – the show’s phenomenal success has drawn attention to a growing cultural issue: the importance of grassroots drama schools and clubs, and working-class representation on TV.
Last Sunday, 15-year-old Owen Cooper became the youngest male actor to win an Emmy, for his performance as the teenage murder suspect Jamie Miller. Amid the celebrations, the founders of Drama MOB in Manchester, where Cooper attended weekly classes for two years, rightly pointed out the crucial part this training played in landing him the role, an impact the young actor acknowledged in his acceptance speech.
In pushing back against the “done nothing and came from nowhere” narrative, they paid tribute to all the teachers working in unglamorous community halls up and down the country to make such stories a reality. Billy Elliot, after all, only learned to pirouette thanks to his chain-smoking ballet teacher, Mrs Wilkinson, played by Julie Walters in the film. Walters started out at Liverpool’s Everyman theatre, whose youth programme also counts the Adolescence co-writer and star Stephen Graham among its alumni. As Walters has said, the prospects for young working-class actors are much starker today.
