"Where are the Albert Finneys, the Tom Courtenays, the Richard Burtons? Where are all these great, gritty regional actors?"

This was the thinking behind the opening of the Academy Of Creative Training, explains principal Jeanette Eddisford.

Founded by actor and director John Moulder Brown in 1997, ACT was intended as an antidote to the prohibitively expensive drama schools in London which seemed to be producing a homogenous range of graduates - all from privileged, middle-class backgrounds. John was determined to cultivate the raw talent lying out there undiscovered.

Now approaching its tenth birthday ACT has become a field of dreams, enabling aspiring artists with limited means or restrictive circumstances to develop the skills needed to pursue acting as a career.

A one-year foundation course and twoyear diploma, with classes in the evenings and at weekends, allows students to work and/or care for dependents, while studying at the same time.

Tutors work for £10 less per hour than the going rate which helps to keep fees low, and two thirds of graduates currently go on to earn money as professional actors.

The independently run ACT is serving an important purpose nationally, says Andrea Brooks who directs Lucy, the first of two plays being performed for the public by final year ACT students this week at Brighton's Pavilion Theatre.

"I work at several other mainstream drama schools, such as RADA and Central.

They are now so expensive you tend to just get students who are all between 19 and 22, all from moderately wealthy backgrounds.

"It is a limited group of people to do theatre with - limited in age, experience and background.

"The television and film industry is very grateful and curious about the people coming in to the industry later in life.

"It is also very enjoyable dealing with actors who have lives, jobs and children outside of the school to ground them," she adds. "They seem to have more life experience to draw upon for joys and traumas, unlike a student who has never had to pay a gas bill."

Like Andrea who runs Zygo Arts, a Brighton-based arts and theatre company, and regularly mentors young artists, all the tutors at ACT are experienced professional actors and/or directors with various areas of expertise.

Such credentials suggest audiences won't be disappointed with the standard of acting in either Lucy or Once a Catholic, which follows.

Lucy, written by local talent Ed Harris and set on an island called Britneygrad - a play on Britney Spears and Stalingrad - is, according to Andrea, "like watching Shameless mixed with a muscular kind of poetry".

It transforms what we might hear on the streets of Brighton, "on West Street between midnight and 3am", into something quite surreal, involving cannibalism and conjoined twins, romance and ridicule.

Described as an "epic dystopian romp", Andrea says, "It is a unique, bizarre piece of writing, hugely energetic and reflective of a culture that is present throughout the UK, a culture that mistrusts anything other than the lowest common denominator.

"It is dark and terrible, and at other moments funny and stunningly beautiful."

Once a Catholic is directed by ACT tutor and professional actor and director Aaron Swartz. Written by Mary O'Malley, it's a fast-paced black comedy set in a Fifties London convent school for girls.

With its serious psychological undertones concerning religious and sexual oppression, the play is an apposite choice from Aaron who is also training as an integrative arts psychotherapist in London.

"Drama is not therapy but it can have a therapeutic effect," says Aaron, who believes ACT also has an important function closer to home, in the community. "It is helping people fulfil their creativity. When people get in touch with their creativity, things shift.

"It is a great way for people to discover themselves, and challenge their demons."

He also pays tribute to the students' "incredible dedication." Some of them have made huge sacrifices to be here, he says.

"Some of the students have had a lot of knocks.

It brings a maturity and depth to the place."

  • LUCY (Monday and Tuesday) and ONCE A CATHOLIC (Wednesday and Thursday) are showing at the Pavilion Theatre, New Road, Brighton.

Shows starts 7.45pm, tickets £7/£5.50. Call 01273 709709.