Anna Scher

A “HERO” theatre school founder has died, leaving her past pupils determined to make sure her legacy is remembered.

Anna Scher, who set up the Anna Scher Theatre School, died last Sunday at the age of 78.

Ms Scher, who was born in Cork, Ireland, made it her life’s mission to create a safe and affordable place for working-class children to learn to act. Her determined drilling-in of discipline and values for 50 years produced a star-studded list of alumni including Linda Robson, Pauline Quirke, Daniel Kaluuya and Kathy Burke – plus a whole raft of people you may never have heard of, but who carry Ms Scher’s teach­ings with them every day.

“Even the toughest of kids respected Anna. She demanded respect – if she said quiet you were quiet,” said Birds of a Feather star Ms Robson, who joined Ms Scher’s classes when she was just eight years old.

“She always wore a scarf around her head, and she always had dance shoes on. She was just amazing, she really, really was,” she added.

Ms Robson stayed close to her acting coach long after her time in class, with the two of them often lunching in Ottolenghi’s in Upper Street. “She loved a bit of cake as well,” said Ms Robson.

Ms Scher suffered a bout of depression in 2000, and lost her place at her school’s Barnsbury Road venue as a result. She had to step down from her position as principal to take care of her mental health. But when she returned to the school ready to teach, she was told she had been replaced and would not be rehired by the school she had founded.

The Barnsbury venue kept her name, and she was forced to move to St Silas’ Church in Pentonville Road, where she continued to teach, and where classes run under her ethos will continue to run.

Anna cuts the cake at her school’s anniversary celebrations: 45 years in 2013, with Nula Conwell, John Blundell, Naomie Harris, Tameka Empson and Jake Wood

Ms Robson was part of the campaign to get her back into the original school. “She was treated terribly. We got her back, but they said she needed to be watched because she had struggled with depression. I think there was more of a stigma back then with mental health,” she said.

Dean Batchelor, another of Ms Scher’s students, says that he left the school once she had been forced out. “When she stopped being at that specific building is when I no longer attended,” he said.

“I had my own personal health issues at that point, but I also didn’t want to go anywhere else.”

Ms Scher had a profound impact on Mr Batchelor’s life. “If there was anyone I could say shaped my life outside of my mum and dad, it was her,” he said.

EastEnders actress Brooke Kinsella described Ms Scher as a character – leading class warm-ups with a tambourine and high kicks. “You’d go up for auditions and there would be very jazz-hands-stage-school-kids singing Somewhere Over The Rainbow, and we would sing the Toblerone advert song and ‘you must never take up smoking’, which was one of her warm-up songs,” said Ms Kinsella.

She added: “It was so heartbreaking to hear the news. You expect these things, but not with Anna. She was forever young. She was so formidable that you felt she’d always be here.

“I still live by the motto she had – ‘proper preparation prevents poor performance’. It wasn’t a stage school – you went to learn how to live, how to be a good person.

“She scared me more than my mum and dad combined. She had the look – whatever you were doing, you stopped immediately. It wasn’t through fear, but because you didn’t want to let her down. They were the happiest days of my life.”

Anna with Kathy Burke

Richie Campbell, who stars in ITV’s Grace, still brings Ms Scher’s wisdom to set. “Adam Deacon [who was also taught by Anna] is one of my good friends, and I improvised a line in his new movie, Sumotherhood. It was ‘proper preparation prevents poor perfor­mance’. I didn’t even remember it was an Anna line. Adam is such a stickler for sticking to your lines, so I didn’t think he’d go for it. I remember discussing it later on at the premiere and a lot of Anna Scher’s students were there, and they clocked the link straight away. It goes to show how ingrained she is in our lives.”

Ms Scher moved to London when she was a teenager, eventually becoming a primary school teacher before setting up her acting classes. It’s clear from her students’ accounts that she was passionate about social justice – making sure her classes were cheap enough for everyone to attend, and then showing her students Martin Luther King’s and Mahatma Gandhi’s speeches.

“Anna welcomed everybody, whether you lived in a mansion or a council flat – I don’t think she cared. The foundation was for working-class kids to have somewhere to go that was safe and to enjoy drama. She gave you the belief that you could be an actor,” said Laura Bayston, one of Ms Scher’s students who went on to appear in Killing Eve.

She added: “She inspired me at a time when I needed it. She had the most beautiful smile. I know it sounds cheesy, but her face would erupt with warmth.”

In 2012, with Bernard Pellegrinetti, Charles Verrall, Sally Ann Curran and Dickon Tolson

Kaara Benstead attended Ms Scher’s classes for six years. “Anna gave people a place to go to escape from what they were coming from,” she said. “There was a lot of poverty in Islington. I was brought up off the Essex Road and there were a lot of people that grew up without much. That’s why she kept her prices low, even if you couldn’t afford it one week you could still come in. They don’t make them like her any more.

“She lived in the area, and she wanted to make the area better for the youths in the area.”

Patrice George found Ms Scher’s classes when she moved from south to north London. “She was a very happy-go-lucky person,” she said. “She’d talk to us about her stories, she’d talk to us about Jewish history, and she’d always remind us that we’re all one, it didn’t matter where you’d come from. And she loved the tongue twisters.”

Ego was not allowed in Ms Scher’s classroom. “If you said ‘I wanna be famous’ or ‘I wanna be a star,’ she would show you the door,” said Ms Benstead.

Mr Campbell said: “Someone would say ‘Leon Black has just booked EastEnders’ and you’d have to stand up and clap and say well done, even if you were disappointed. It was never an ‘I’m better than you’ situation, it was all about praising each other’s strengths. She really didn’t like people thinking they were big.”

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Anna with former MP Chris Smith and Islington North MP Jeremy Corbyn

Sarah Mitchell, daughter of poet Adrian Mitchell, says the discipline Ms Scher taught her sticks with her to this day. “The rule was you had to turn up 10 minutes before the studio doors opened,” she said. “There was a little foyer, and if you weren’t there 10 minutes before, you were sent home. It taught you what all actors need to know – the art of being on time. I was late once, and sent all the way back home. I was never late again.”

All the students the Tribune spoke to said the defining thing about Ms Scher’s classes was that they were safe – you were safe to be yourself, figure out who you were, and learn things in the process.

Ashley Trezise, another former student, said: “She wasn’t self-conscious at all, and she enabled you to be less self-conscious, she gave everyone else the self-confidence to dance and prance and shout and scream – whatever actors try to do.”

Ms Mitchell said: “She made us all feel that she was happy we were there. Being welcomed by an adult, and being challenged by an adult to do better or to be braver but in a safe environment, is gold dust. The alternative for a lot of those kids was the streets of Islington after dark on a November night. She kept a lot of people safe. And she inspired hundreds of people.”