麻豆约拍

Over the years I've attended quite a few acting Q&As, workshops, masterclasses, whatever. Irrespective of the nomenclature, the standard format is this: established and respected actor describes the beginning of their career to a group of wide-eyed aspirant performers who hope that some silver bullet of sage advice will be imparted. Inevitably, at some point, the actor will bemoan the death of "repertory theatre" and in light of its demise conclude they don't have a clue how today's young actors will make it. The young people then leave to find the nearest brick wall against which they can hit their disappointed heads.

The - still fondly known as the Rep - is probably the closest approximation we have to repertory theatre. Traditionally, this theatre form involved a single company presenting a different play each week - performing one piece in the evening whilst rehearsing the next week's show in the day. For those involved, it was an education in the diverse breadth of Western theatre. It was also an intensive training ground: it required alacrity (no four-week rehearsal period), versatility (Ibsen one week, Shakespeare the next, and then perhaps a new play that had just finished its West End run), and generosity (you might be Hamlet this time, but Osric next).

It is with sublime glee, then, that I write this from the perspective of a member of the RDC - halfway through my contract and still fizzing with the sheer effervescent joy of it all. Since joining the company in July I've come to appreciate and experience what those older actors mourned in the passing of our repertory theatre.

For someone with a background in London fringe theatre (three weeks rehearsing, three weeks performing), the speed at which a production is completed on radio was rather a shock - a single read-through of the script and then by the end of the day the episode was done. Throw your scripts away on the way out and find a pristine new script of something entirely different in your inbox. Of course, this necessitates that you arrive prepared - you can't spend the first week of rehearsal trying to find your character's spirit animal and writing a novella of backstory. You can, however and indeed must, make bold choices without self-consciousness - and that's been a vital lesson.

Then, of course, there's the sheer range of work. One of the first productions I was involved required me to play seven distinct characters - I was in the studio for a single day and it was a joy. Notwithstanding the pleasure of doing silly voices and diverse accents (admittedly, as diverse in credibility as in supposed geographical origin...), there is the satisfaction of saying the words of a plethora of writers. Within a single week in September I played a Dutch settler on a desolate island and a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp for an adaptation of Primo Levi's The Periodic Table, a quintessentially English Mr Elton in Jane Austen's Emma (set in colonial India), and a collection of soldiers for the new series of the First World War drama, 麻豆约拍 Front. I don't offer this litany of work as a boast (okay, well not entirely) - or if it is a boast, it's one that belongs to the 麻豆约拍 and Radio Drama.

The greatest boon and unadulterated pleasure of this Company is, however, just that - that it is a company and community of actors. Any intimidation one might feel at your fellows' skills and experience is more than matched by their generosity and encouragement. A sense of communality is a rare thing in any profession, not least the acting world which can be fiercely competitive, lonely and stratified - but our little radio outpost is a great leveller. I have been afforded the opportunity to work with such a dazzling array of actors and on an equal footing. I believe a highlight of my career will remain being told by David Threlfall that I smell of cheap ham (a line from the script and not a critique on my approach to the text).

One other torch of the bygone repertory theatre that Radio Drama keeps alight is its importance and familiarity to its audience. Since I won this contract to join the RDC - through a fantastic scheme called the (companion to the ) - I have been taken aback by the response from friends and colleagues. They think it must be one of the best jobs in the world (I'm with them on that) and they're insanely jealous (not just the actors - everyone). And then they express their love for radio drama like it's an old friend. I had no notion of quite how many people are listening and loving it - it's a supremely daunting and encouraging thought.

Leo Wan is an actor and winner of the 麻豆约拍 Norman Beaton Fellowship 2015

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