Trevor's West End dream comes true (From Stroud News and Journal)

Trevor's West End dream comes true

WALKING the boards in the West End is a dream for many aspiring actors. Having lived that dream, Trevor Smith is more than happy with his achievements and is now happy to be exploring new avenues.

Born and brought up in Essex, Trevor was once an ambitious teenager who just wanted to act but he met early resistance from his sceptical father.

"I was a working class lad - my father said to me 'you have to be born into it son'," said the 60-year-old, of Stroud.

After persuading his parents to let him give drama a go he was given a taste for the stage from the unlikeliest of teachers. "I was taught by these two well-bred communist lesbians at their drama group in Essex," he said.

"They knew Stephen Spender and W.H Auden and they had real Picassos hanging on their walls. They educated me really."

At the age of 18, Trevor's talents were spotted by Joan Littlewood of Oh What a Lovely War fame. So with his grant tucked into his back pocket and bags in hand he headed for the bright lights of London in the early 60s.

"It was a very interesting time with the Beatles around and the arts was really happening too," he said.

In his early 20s he honed his skills at Lincoln Theatre Royal and then at Nottingham Playhouse under the guidance of the directors Richard Eyre and Jonathan Miller, where he continued to perform the classics such as King Lear and Hamlet.

Trevor would later tour the United States with Miller's Beyond the Fringe satirical review show. Then in the early 1970s he was drawn back to the smoke to begin a long stint as a jobbing actor for films, television and the West End.

He was reunited with the woman who discovered him, doing 16 plays over the next two decades for Joan Littlewood's theatre workshop. In the Agatha Christie film Murder is Easy Trevor was slain by Olivia de Havilland, who played one of the sisters in Gone with the Wind, and he also played Jeremy Iron's side-kick in a film called The Captain's Doll.

And in the 80s Trevor performed alongside former Coronation star Amanda Barry in the West End show Stepping Out. He also played a German soldier in Allo Allo.

"I did three or four episodes a series for a number of years, it was great fun. The show is sold everywhere now. It just keeps going on and on," he said.

The 1980s also brought a new era for Trevor when he set up his own theatre project, The Epic Theatre Company. "The idea was to get scores of actors, opera singers and the circus performers all working together within a single dramatic narrative," he said.

After several successful productions Trevor received interest from the World Wildlife Fund, the Green Party and Oxfam who wanted to collaborate through an extravagant joint venture.

"They wanted me to come up with a subject so I began thinking and it occurred to me that their real subject is personal morality, " he said.

"I realised that I couldn't teach that. Thatcher was pulling all of the funding out of the arts and I found myself doing adverts and training films. I thought to myself is this what I became an actor for?"

The research for the venture was not wasted however, as it led Trevor to the educational philosophies of Rudloph Steiner which remains a passion of his to this day.

In 1991 Trevor left the industry to pursue a career as a Steiner school teacher. And three years ago he moved with his wife and son to the five valleys and now teaches at Wynstone's school in Brookthorpe. "Stroud is a good place to live, things happen here and there is no judgement," said Trevor.

And content with his work, Trevor has never since looked back. "I was lucky and privileged doing the West End, it was exciting working in a large theatre but I have no regrets, I had a ball doing it," he said.

*Trevor now hosts a monthly music club at Stroud Subscription rooms, which celebrates the music of the pre-1950s.