‘Working class in the world of an artist’

It’s 1997, London. Blair secures a landslide victory under the banner of New Labour ending almost two decades of Tory government, and John Prescott cries “we’re all middle-class now!”… 15 miles south in Croydon an 8-year-old boy is sat on the floor watching his granddad paint a canvas and dreaming of being an artist.

As much as Prescott may have hit the nail on the head in the traditional sense of class, my granddad Alan certainly was working class. He was also a chronic alcoholic whose life was – and is still – shrouded in mystery (affairs, long-lost offspring, apparently even a get-away driver for the Krays); I never saw much of him, but I remember each of his visits vividly: a man of principle with a creativity that burst out of him whenever it was given the chance. For his generation, a lack of formal training stunted his clear artistic potential; for mine, the world was my oyster… in terms of education at least.

In 2011, The BBC posed the question “Can I have no job and no money and still be middle class?” with their Great British Class Survey, and discovered that class was no longer exclusively defined by your parents occupation and education. Many young people, myself included, fell into a group they called “Emergent Service Workers”. This new type of working class could be highly educated and culturally active, but poorer than the traditional working class.

As enterprising as “Education, Education, Education” undoubtedly was, a less single-minded mantra may have been “Education, Equality, Opportunity”. We have moved into an era where in school you could be whatever you wanted to be, only to realise you’ll struggle to get a job in Starbucks once you’ve graduated, and God forbid you wanted to be an artist without Mummy & Daddy to help.

The struggle is more real than ever. In 2015 I was interviewed by the London School of Economics for a paper entitled ‘Like Skydiving without a Parachute’: How Class Origin Shapes Occupational Trajectories in British Acting, which demonstrated “the profound advantages afforded to actors who can draw upon familial economic advantages”. Tell me something we don’t already know! But this flies in the face of the Tom Hollander school of thought saying that posh actors are just “fashionable”.

I’ve spent the past four years defying privilege in the artistic world at great personal sacrifice. Total up the amount I’ve earned from acting (and I’ve worked a lot) the figure would be less than £10,000. Assuming I didn’t earn most of that in the last year the average would be £2,500 per year. How much is my rent again?! Acting seems to be the last profession where it’s acceptable to pay less than minimum wage; I worked on a play for 9 weeks in 2013 where I was paid 70p an hour. To make my career work in this kind of environment, I’ve had to work my arse off and simultaneously deal with working out where the hell I was going to sleep each night.

In The Past Is A Tattooed Sailor I play Damian – a working class builder who also dreams of being an artist. His “hero” is the painter Francis Bacon, whose parents turned their back on his career, so he used the one great leveller of class: his sexuality. For me, like Damien, like Bacon, my sexuality has enabled me to defy a lack of opportunity, to meet people I would otherwise have struggled to meet who have helped keep my career ticking. Talent? Sure. Hard-work? Definitely. But it’s my sexuality that has provided me with opportunity in a world without privilege.

The Past Is A Tattooed Sailor by Simon Blow runs from 2 – 27 August at the Old Red Lion Theatre [nearest tube: Angel]. Tickets on sale now.

Denholm Spurr is an actor, director and creative freelancer living in London. He currently sits on the judging panel for the Off West End Awards and is heavily involved in activism against homelessness and inequality.

He will also be reprising his role in critically acclaimed The Chemsex Monologues, returning to the King’s Head Theatre, 15 – 21 August at 9.45pm.

Follow him on Twitter @DenholmSpurr

For the best deals on tickets and shows, visit tickets.attitude.co.uk.

More stories:
Tom Daley reveals how he came out to his mum
Straight model who starred in gay porn with twin bother admits it ‘ruined’ their relationship