When I told my friends that I had decided to give up teaching and go to drama school, they were appalled, writes Chris Moran.
One asked why I wanted to spend three years pretending to grow from an acorn into a tree; another if I was doing it just to get an agent. The idea that I thought I could actually learn something - crafts such as voice projection, stage combat, dancing, singing, let alone the experience of performing in a huge number of plays - prompted snorts of derision. The fact that it might cost over £30,000 as well seemed like a sick joke.
You might have thought that, as a man whose immense wealth partly rests on the performances of trained actors, Andrew Lloyd Webber might find it beneficial to combat this misconception.
Instead he has just announced he's jumping onto the talent show bandwagon because drama schools, apparently, aren't producing the type of performers he is looking for. "Stage schools tend to turn our performers with a certain patina," Lloyd Webber says. "There is a certain sameness."
But if he actually believes this, why isn't he casting the whole show in the same manner? Perish the thought that it has something to do with publicity.
The performing arts is one of the few industries Britain has which is respected worldwide. This isn't because we happen to have good acting genes - it's the result of an infrastructure that excels in discovering and developing new talent.
The Sound of Music requires a lead whose voice can withstand eight shows a week of vocal battering, who can dance to a very high standard and who can tackle one of the biggest acting roles in modern musicals. It's possible that a television show might just find someone capable of doing all these things.
But solving a problem like Maria by ignoring the huge numbers of trained, committed actresses emerging from drama schools each year is perverse. To then claim that it's because none of these actresses are capable of doing the job is just plain rude.
