Cambridge has a never ending list of famous actors who have passed though its halls. Just this week, Trinity alumnus Eddie Redmayne walked away with a Best Actor Oscar and you only have to poke your head backstage at the ADC to see crowds of current students hoping to follow in his footsteps. But the path to fame is difficult and not every hopeful can make a career in this competitive world.

The first step is getting representation, and the annual Marlowe Showcase offers finalists the opportunity to perform for agents in what could mark the first step of their career. This year fourteen students will take to the stage at London’s Arts Theatre with a series of monologues and duologues to showcase their talents.

The showcase is being directed by industry professional and Cambridge alumnus Nicholas Barter. A former Principal of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), he has a wealth of experience in training young actors and has also directed professional productions from London’s West End to Tokyo.

He has fond memories of acting and directing while a student here in Cambridge and calls it “one of the richest amateur theatre scenes in any university in the country. There’s a great tradition”. Some notable highlights for him were directing the Marlowe Showcase as an undergraduate, as one of only three undergraduates to do so, and directing a performance of Jean Anouilh’s Antigone at the ADC. While here, Barter worked with several other students who later became professional directors, including Sir Richard Eyre, Mike Newell and Robert Knights, and he credits the university theatre as having a huge impact on his later career. “I think I did 21 plays in the 3 years I was here, either as an actor or director, and you learn an awful lot.”

Barter certainly seems very fond of the Cambridge theatrical tradition and sees it having a bright future. He assures me that “no doubt one or both of my student assistant directors on the showcase (Henry St Leger-Davey and Emma Wilkinson) will be running the National Theatre one day.”

His advice for any student considering a career in theatre is: “Do as much as you can!
“Don’t be deflected from the fact that Cambridge is an amazingly rich source of experience. I would always say that if that’s what you really want to do, you’ve got to give it your best shot.

“Of course try and get a degree, don’t sacrifice your degree, but do as much as you can.”

Indeed, he notes that the actors this year seem to have more academic commitments than he remembers from his time, but as he says himself, “I was rather cavalier about that when I was here.”

However, he acknowledges that it will be an uphill struggle for his cast of actors before they can forge their own careers. While the Marlowe Showcase provides them with a great opportunity, it can be a real struggle, even for actors with a huge range of experience in university drama; “it’s a purely commercial event, it’s not about art, and that’s hard for actors to take on board.” And the showcase itself doesn’t always have predictable results.

“They can’t really control how the agent sees them. If the agent already has someone on their books who looks like and sounds like them, they’re unlikely to pick up the actor.”

Barter acknowledges that for many, this will only be a first step. He cites the relatively low number of Cambridge alumni who have managed to sustain an acting career without further training and emphasises that going on to drama school is important for anyone thinking of going into acting.

“They don’t get the voice work here and indeed they don’t get the movement work… they’re not really in their bodies to the extent that an actor should be, it’s all a little bit in the head… we’ve actually brought in an Alexander teacher to work with [the actors in the Marlowe Showcase] to try and get them more in touch with their bodies and of course in drama school you’d get Alexander Technique lessons every week.”

The finalists involved in the Showcase are certainly aware of the difficulties involved in breaking into acting. Guy Clark tells me that while he would love to become an actor, “it’s a slightly terrifying thing to commit to.”

However, they are also clearly very grateful for this opportunity. Kay Dent feels that it “could very well help us for the rest of our lives.”

A preview of the Marlowe Showcase will be performed at the ADC at 4.30pm on Thursday 5th March.