Jarrad James left Swish in July after successfully gaining a place on a 3 year Musical Theatre Degree Course at the renowned Bird College of Performing Arts in Sidcup. We caught up with him on his return to sunny Bournemouth :)
It’s been your first term of full time drama school – what’s been the hardest part for you and why?
It was quite an adjustment integrating into a brand new community which includes a lot of new people, and in this industry that means a lot of big and diverse personalities which I actually found quite hard to begin with.
What does a typical day look like?
Some days I start at 8:30am and won’t finish until about 7:00pm without hardly a break at all! Other days are a little more chilled although it’s a pretty intensive week all in all.
Did you feel prepared once you started or was it a huge shock to the system?
I felt very prepared to be pushed but wasn’t prepared for the first week which was actually assessments so that was a bit of a shock to the system being thrown in right at the deep end! In class I feel fully settled and confident, even in classes with which I had had no prior experience such as tap, I feel I have been pushed yet supported at the same time.
Is there any advice that you would give to Swish students about to audition?
When auditioning I would recommend that you don’t compare yourself to everyone else in the room – show them your potential and personality as they don’t want everyone to be the same anyway.
Have you studied any shows that you didn’t know of before and now love?
For the first half of term we studied legit rep and I was surprised to find that I really enjoyed singing shows such as Anything Goes and Top Hat for example which I used to ignore a bit!