Actor was at the launch of National Theatre initiative Let’s Play to encourage more theatre-making in primary schools

Sir Lenny Henry has criticised cuts in school drama teaching as a scandal as it means children are not being properly prepared for the outside world.

The comedian and actor has launched a new National Theatre initiative to encourage better drama and theatre-making in primary schools.

Henry, who recalled on Thursday his secondary school drama lessons as “basically, running round the school hall pretending to be the Avengers”, said good arts and drama education was crucial.

“I’m learning there have been massive cuts in teaching the arts in schools and it is cutting off your nose to spite your face. If you are not teaching children how to be creative and curious, what are you preparing them for? You are not preparing them for the outside world,” said Henry.

Andrew Lloyd Webber has condemned as a “national scandal” cuts to music lessons in UK schools. “It is the same thing for drama,” said Henry.

“We have an issue in this country in terms of working class people having access to activities like writing and plays and music. Working class people are under-resourced when it comes to the arts and we need to rebalance that.”

School’s creative subjects taught me the art of living | Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett Read more

He said there was one rule for private schools, which often have extensive, well-resourced arts lessons, and another rule for all other schools.

Henry launched the National Theatre programme, called Let’s Play, at Hill Mead primary school in Brixton, London.

“The more you see kids like this having structured play and structured activity in the theatrical arts the more you get a sense of them stretching out. You wonder whether that’s a thing: ‘You don’t need to do that, you’re only going to work in a factory any way!’ If there were factories to work in.”

Lisa Burger, executive director of the National Theatre, said theatre should be available to all children across the UK, but budget cuts and an increasing focus on testing and assessment around literacy and numeracy was squeezing out drama.

“Let’s Play comes from our general concern about the state of drama education in the school curriculum,” she said.



The new initiative is based on an idea from the theatre director Katie Mitchell. It involves the National Theatre commissioning new plays with songs and music for primary aged children to perform.

It hopes to recruit at least 700 schools to the programme over the next three years and train 1,000 teachers. The aspiration is that by 2020, 50,000 pupils will have taken part in Let’s Play.

Many arts leaders have spoken about what they see as a decline of arts education in UK schools. One issue is the lack of a compulsory arts subject in the English baccalaureate.

Last month Arts Council England (ACE) announced more details of the Durham commission on creativity and education, which will explore the best ways of nurturing creativity in young people.

It will be chaired by the ACE chairman, Sir Nicholas Serota, who said the commission was an opportunity to “step back, review the evidence, see what has worked, and come up with some proposals” that could be considered by his organisation and the government.

