Dispel any preconceptions about privileged young showoffs indulging themselves at Shakespeare's expense. With its emphasis on access for aspiring actors with limited means or restrictive circumstances, Brighton's Academy Of Creative Training, currently performing at the Pavilion Theatre, is a drama school with a difference.

Of the 21 students in the final year, for instance, over a third are parents or single parents. About a quarter are people who have already achieved a high status in other professions, and have ditched long careers in publishing, teaching or the media to be here.

Five are dyslexic, and would say of themselves that they were failures at school. All have completed a two year Diploma at ACT and are now ready to act professionally. In the summer, when the academy holds its annual industry showcase, at least two thirds of them should be picked up by theatrical agents.

"What a lot of drama schools will not do is put their students out in front of the public," says Janette Eddisford.

"I personally think that's cos they're worried about their own reputation.

We make a commitment to the students that they will be ready to work professionally at the end of two years, and the only way for them to have the confidence to do that is to get in front of an audience."

Over Christmas, the academy performed the Christmas Carol-inspired What The Dickens at the Nightingale Theatre. Tonight their four-day stint at the larger Pavilion Theatre, which began on Monday with Ed Harris' dystopian satire Lucy, continues with a promising production of the thoughtful comedy Once a Catholic.

First produced at the Royal Court Theatre in 1976, Mary O'Malley's award winning play is listed by online drama database Doollee as a play "about Guinness, Catholicism and incest".

Set in the Fifties, at the South London Convent of Our Lady Of Fatima, the play follows the antics of three fifth formers, innocent Mary Mooney, saucy Mary McGinty and pert Mary Gallagher. Battling their way through adolescence with stubborn resolve, they encounter the facts of life, Father Mullarkey and the corrupting influence of Elvis Presley.

Guest-starring a few girls from the local convent school, the play is directed by Aaron Swartz with professional engineers, designers and technicians. With a view to readying the students for reality, however, set and wardrobe are approached as if the academy were a poor fringe company - they learn to be highly industrious.

"We needed a toilet designing for Once a Catholic," says Eddisford, "and I've just employed one of our graduates, who used to be a plumber, to refit my bathroom. He's taken out my old toilet and the students are using that."

  • Starts 7.45pm, £7/£5.50. Call 01273 709709.

www.actedu.org.uk