Month: January 2016

It just struck me what this graph means.

In 2015, 895 individuals took the time to be interested- viewing 2,495 times content relating to what myself, my wonderful associates and my students are doing.

I am very grateful to every single one of them and to all those who have visited here since. And that includes you.

Thank you xx

I was born in Cape Town, South Africa and was immersed in theatre as a young child.  I had my first, paid job as an actor in 1979 with The Lindsay Kemp Mime Troupe in which my mother, Annie Balfour, was a member.

While at Holland Park Comprehensive School and then at Battersea Arts Centre, I was mentored by Tony Fegan (currently artistic director at Tallaght Community Arts, Ireland).  I trained at Drama Centre, London (group 23) from 1983-84 under Christopher Fettes and Yat Malmgren and worked as an actor until 1990.  I then explored other fields including, set design and construction, pioneering 3D digital modelling for theatre and television, designing and delivering training and running my own business while raising a young family.

I resumed work  as an actor in 2010 after re-training in Meisner Technique with Simon Furness.  With this new understanding, I seek ´to help the human heart have knowledge of itself´ by being honest and enabling moments that actually ´happen´ in the given, imaginary circumstances of the piece. ´

Driven by my desire to serve my acting community, I have established an acting school in St Leonards on Sea and am now offering regular classes in London.   My teaching is based on the principles established by Sanford Meisner, as taught to me by Tom Radcliffe and Simon Furness.   Teaching is a source of continual growth for me and of limitless inspiration as others discover this approach and put it into practise in their own work.

My work both in the theatre and other spheres has led me to create Company C, a family of actors, creatives and technicians coming together to work on productions, and in directing. In my directing practise, I work with heart and passion, collaborating supportively to collectively ´find´ the piece and, together, get to depth with it.

It is beyond my wildest dreams to find myself, today, working on the Tempest with such an extraordinarily capable group of people who work with total commitment and faith.

Click here for more about  Company C

Click here for more about Lawrence

I feel deep gratitude that it is through Tom Radcliffe and his pupil, Simon Furness, that I learned many of the principles I live and work-by today.

Three years at drama school did nothing to improve the situation in fact I believe it made me worse. I was pushed directly and indirectly towards the creation of an acting persona, which masked the awful mess I felt myself to be. This divided me even further from the innocent creative child who was the true force of my creative impulses. I was expected to create a thing called a character on top of this shaky pile of pretence. No wonder that acting became increasingly stressful and dishonest. There was the odd occasion when miraculously the awful self-consciousness would collapse and the acting would effortlessly emerge but these moments were few and far between.
…As Sandy said, “You can’t create a character on top off a character…There is no such thing as a character.” By this he means we cannot become Hamlet or Ophelia but we can do what they do thereby creating the illusion of character in the mind of the audience.
~ Tom Radcliffe