University News Last updated 08 April
A Royal Birmingham Conservatoire (RBC) alumnus has recently been nominated for a WhatsOnStage Award for Best Studio Production for Be More Chill at the Old Joint Stock.
James Edge, who graduated from RBC with a BA (Hons) in Acting in 2015, is the Artistic Director at the Old Joint Stock Pub & Theatre in Birmingham.
“I think I was always a creative deep down, but I was a bit of a tearaway growing up,” James said. “I fell into acting in a pretty unexpected way.”
After getting into trouble with the police as a teenager, he found himself walking past the Redditch Palace Theatre with his mum. “She looked at me and said, ‘We have to get you off the streets, don’t we?’”
A week later, he joined the youth theatre. Within days, he’d been cast in Pinocchio: “That was it - the rest is history.”
James was introduced to RBC by fellow alumnus and close friend Corey Campbell, with whom he attended the same college and drama school. Corey is now the Creative Director of the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry.
“I’m not from a wealthy background, and aside from my mum, I didn’t have a huge amount of support going into acting,” James said. “RBC was the first place that made me feel like someone like me could belong and more than that, could actually build something for myself.”
After failing his first audition, he attended workshops, refined his approach, and was accepted on recall. "I met the late, great David Vann, who was running audition workshops at the school. After one session, I went up to him and said, 'I really want to get in can you help me?' He looked at me and simply said, 'Yes.'"
During the recall, David walked past, and gave James a wink: "That small moment of reassurance changed everything I relaxed, trusted myself, and I ended up getting in. I genuinely don’t think I’d have had the same journey without him."
“My three years at Birmingham School of Acting (now part of Royal Birmingham Conservatoire) were exactly what drama school should be: the best and worst years of my life,” James said.
“You go from being a big fish in a small pond to a very small fish in a very big ocean. It taught me the reality of the industry: if you want it, you have to work for it.”
Since graduating, James has toured the UK in plays, musicals, pantomimes, and even performed in care homes. “There’s a strange hierarchy in this industry about what ‘success’ looks like,” James muses.
“I remember once I’d done four jobs back-to-back and had been working for six months straight. Someone asked, ‘Anything I might have seen you in?’ I said no, listed what I’d done, and they replied, ‘Keep going, you’ll do it one day.’ I remember thinking, but I am doing it! So alongside honing your craft, you have to build real mental resilience.”
That same mindset led James to create something of his own. During lockdown, frustrated by what he saw online, James decided to create the kind of platform he felt was missing: “There was nothing that felt like it truly belonged to the theatre community,” he said.
That idea became West End Best Friend, a theatre platform dedicated to news, reviews, and community.
To build an initial audience, they ran competitions, interviewed artists, and covered theatre news. Then, when theatres reopened, James went to see a show and wrote the first review.
“It was Private Peaceful at the Barn Theatre in Cirencester, a small venue in the countryside. I loved the show and gave it a great review,” James recalls.
“A few months later, it transferred to the West End and suddenly our very first review was quoted on the side of a West End theatre. That was a surreal moment and one we definitely wanted to repeat.”
What began as a lockdown idea has since grown into one of the UK’s most recognisable theatre platforms, with around 50 reviewers across the country, attending press nights big and small, and now boasts over 100,000 followers across social media, with millions of monthly views.
The platform is James’ proudest achievement since graduating: “I can’t tell you how good it feels when I mention it and people respond with, ‘Oh my God, that’s you?!’”
“What started as an idea during lockdown has genuinely become a platform that opens doors not just for me, but for others too.”
Through West End Best Friend, James gained many industry contacts, which ultimately led to his role at the Old Joint Stock.
On what it was like to leave acting, James responded: “Although it was difficult stepping away from my agent, I trusted that if acting was meant to come back around, it would. In that time, I met dozens of producers, directors, performers and theatre companies.”
He initially managed the Town and Gown Pub & Theatre in Cambridge alongside Karl Steele, where he learned everything there was to know, including directing, producing, casting, programming, and marketing.
About a year later, James heard there was an opening at the Old Joint Stock, where he had performed as an actor. “It felt like a natural next step,” he said.
“Fringe theatres are special,” James adds. “They’re intimate, flexible, and completely transformative spaces. You’re not presenting a piece of work to an audience, you're right there with them, sharing the experience, looking them in the eye and taking them on the journey.”
Now at the helm of the Old Joint Stock, he’s shaping that experience for both artists and audiences. On a typical day, James can be doing programming, marketing, running the box office, and even cleaning and painting. “You wear every hat,” he explains.
In the past year alone, the Old Joint Stock produced 11 shows, including Be More Chill, Bonnie & Clyde, two national tours, an open-air tour, concerts, and festive productions. “It was relentless,” James recalls. “But having a theatrical playground to create in? That’s something really special.”
On how it felt to have Be More Chill nominated for a WhatsOnStage Award, James said: “It genuinely felt like the best feeling in the world. We worked insanely hard on that show, we sold out a four-week run, and to then see it receive national recognition made every second worth it.”
“I’d actually been listening to the show for over a decade. I remember working in a factory job between acting contracts, headphones in, when Michael in the Bathroom came on and I was instantly hooked. From that moment, it became a dream show of mine, so to end up directing it, especially as the regional premiere, was a real honour.”
The Old Joint Stock made a conscious decision to cast artists gaining their very first professional credits, something that means a great deal to James.
“Honestly, I couldn’t be prouder of that production. We made something really special.”
James has big plans for the future, including expanding West End Best Friend with more video content and hosting its own awards, as well as an American expansion.
His advice to aspiring actors is simple: “Don’t try to be what you think they want, be you, and bring that into the room.”
It’s a mindset that has shaped his journey so far, and one that continues to guide him as he brings theatre to new audiences in Birmingham and beyond.
James encourages anyone interested in acting, or with questions about the industry, to reach out to him on social media.