‘The journey is as important as the destination’
John Newth looks for the secret of the success enjoyed by a leading Bournemouth theatre school
Published in January ’18
In the late 1980s, Tina Smith’s life was at something of a cross-roads. She had been passionate about the theatre since childhood – inspired, in part, by Pamela Brown’s classic book, The Swish of the Curtain – and had auditioned for RADA at the unusually young age of fifteen. They were impressed but told her to come back when she was older. But after studying acting at the Jellicoe Theatre, she decided to follow the teaching route and took her BA Honours degree in English at the University of Winchester as well her LAMDA teacher’s diploma in speech and drama under the late Evelyn Evans.
If it’s confidence you want…. The orphans belt out ‘It’s a hard knock life’ in this year’s production of Annie.
Tina taught EFL while at university and continued this afterwards as well as teaching a few acting pupils privately. When her elder son was young, she began teaching elocution at the Park School in Bournemouth instead and increased her private teaching. Her pupils had success at events like the Bournemouth Music Festival: a student who won the championship at the age of 12 went on to become a well-known opera singer and Tina now teaches her 10-year-old child who is about to enter the festivals herself this year.
As her reputation grew, largely through word of mouth, Tina noticed that a new hall was being built for St Katharine’s Church in Southbourne, and it was in that hall that she started to offer larger and more formal classes. In 1991 she gave them a name: Swish of the Curtain. The numbers grew steadily to some 300 by the end of the 1990s, singing and dance tuition gradually being introduced alongside the acting classes. Shows were staged at the Barrington Theatre in Ferndown and later at the Regent Centre in Christchurch. Her work was also being noticed by theatre schools and theatrical agencies further afield, an early link being with the famous Redroofs Theatre School in Maidenhead, whose alumni include Kate Winslet. Students were being offered major stage and TV work; her own sons, Adam and Dominic, were in Harry Potter films, Evita and TV commercials, for example.
Tina Witham (standing, right) gets a little help in explaining what the letters of the name stand for
A turning point came in 2001, when local theatre critic Linda Kirkman saw Swish of the Curtain’s production of Fame and suggested that it was a pity not to perform it at a larger venue, especially as there was a growing interest in musical theatre at that time. On the basis that if you don’t take a risk, you never find out, Tina summoned up the courage to put on one performance only at the 1400-seat Bournemouth Pavilion – and every seat was sold. It was a turning point and moved the whole operation onto the higher level at which it works today.
Tina is the first to say that she might not have had the nerve to take that plunge had she not met a couple of years earlier her husband, Chris Witham. He is also a trained teacher, but he arrived at just the right moment to take charge of the business and administration aspects of the school, which were in danger of distracting Tina from her main role of teaching. Today, the couple are rather like the headmistress and bursar of a conventional school or, as
Sophie Rundle went from Swish of the Curtain to RADA and is now a regular on our TV screens
Tina puts it more graphically, ‘I’m the heart and he’s the head.’ They have also found time to have twins, now aged six, who love every aspect of Swish and have already appeared in several shows.
Although the school, familiarly known as ‘Swish’ to one and all, operates out of offices in Boscombe, it has no rehearsal or performance areas of its own. It continues to use church halls (including St Katharine’s) and, increasingly, schools; there has been an emphasis in recent years on providing dance studios and other performing arts facilities in secondary schools, so Swish’s students benefit and the schools are delighted to have their spaces used profitably during evenings and weekends. There are branches in Poole, Bournemouth, Southbourne, Winton, Christchurch, Ringwood and New Milton, and the total roll is approaching 1000 pupils.
Those pupils are divided broadly into three bands. From 2 to 6, the emphasis is on movement and clear communication – it is never too soon to learn these basic disciplines. Throughout the school, the emphasis is on fun and enjoyment, but especially in these early years, when the foundation stones of the Swish journey are laid. These younger pupils perform in showcases at the De La Salle theatre in Southbourne from the age of two and many now also take up ballet and tap, which they can continue to do throughout the school.
Eliza Cowdery, a current pupil of Swish, is appearing in the West End in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical, School of Rock
In the 7-14 age-group, pupils will start to appear in the school’s major shows and will develop their drama, dancing and singing skills under specialist teachers. At this stage, too, they may start gaining formal qualifications from outside examining bodies like the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. Although the main intention is still to have fun, this is the stage at which they learn most about the disciplines of stage work: turning up on time, wearing the correct clothes, taking direction and working in a team for the good of the whole. Swish’s Performance Academy is for the oldest group, between 15 and 19, who often have their eye on a career on the stage. With this in mind, they are taught in an almost professional environment so that the transition to full-time theatre school is as seamless as possible.
Learning in a church hall or school has little point unless the pupils have a chance to put their skills into practice by performing in front of an audience. Each branch stages its own showcase and the school comes together in the summer to put on a revue-cum-concert at Lighthouse in Poole or another major theatre. There are also summer schools, where a show is rehearsed and performed all in the space of one week. The big event of the year, though, is the major production that takes over the Pavilion for four days every February half-term – the slot is already booked by Swish for the next ten years! Tina Witham always directs, and past successes have included Oliver!, Peter Pan and The Wizard of Oz. This year saw an outstanding version of Annie, following Bugsy Malone last year. These are not parochial, cut-price offerings: no trouble or expense is spared in showing off the children’s talents against a background of the highest possible production values. Both the cause and the result of this approach is that the Pavilion is all but full for most of the performances, the appeal going way beyond doting parents and grandparents.
Another Swish alumnus, Stuart Neal, is playing Billy Lawlor in 42nd Street at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
For those who aspire even higher, Swish has links with casting directors working in stage, film and TV and will act as the child’s agent if that is what the parents would like. From the start, the school has had a good record of success in this area. Sophie Rundle, who is becoming an increasingly familiar face on our screens in series such as Downton Abbey, Peaky Blinders and, most recently, Jamestown, started her career at Swish before going on to RADA. And ten-year-old Eliza Cowdery had to drop out of Annie this year because she was called to play Katie in the West End production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s School of Rock. In acting as an agent, the school has to be especially aware of the strict rules about children working while under school age, but in
all its day-to-day activities, safeguarding is a
top priority.
Last year, the school celebrated 25 years and Tina Witham addressed all the parents about the elements that make up what the school tries to give their children. First on the list was self-belief, that is the confidence to express oneself clearly, whether through speech, movement or music. Next, wishes: giving young people the chance at least to try something they really want to do. Then imagination, a gift which is in danger of being neglected in a child’s development in this age of the ever-encroaching screen. Fourth success: the success of a Sophie Rundle or Eliza Cowdery, certainly, but just as much the success of a previously gauche and shy eleven-year-old who finds the confidence to deliver a single line on stage, or for the first time stands up to read at a school assembly; as Tina says, ‘The journey is as important as the destination.’ And finally happiness, whether the happiness children experience from finding something in themselves that perhaps they never knew was there, or
just the happiness of making new friends with shared interests.
Self-belief, wishes, imagination, success, happiness: perhaps it is not a complete coincidence that the initials of Tina’s chosen qualities make up the word ‘Swish’, but they do sum up why drama is such a powerful educational experience and why her school has enjoyed such success – in every sense of the word.
