thesundaytimes.co.uk
UPSTAGING THE
BADDEST GIRL
IN TOWN
Once labelled by social workers as their worst
child, Jasmine Jobson is now winning plaudits for
her acting. She tells Camilla Cavendish how a
theatre group for children leaving care saved her
A
new star is born: an
18-year-old woman
whose role in a new
play is a triumph
over extraordinary
odds. Once labelled by social
workers as “the most difficult
child in Westminster”, Jasmine Jobson, who says she put
herself into foster care aged 15
after a life of “standing on
street corners selling weed, and
fighting”, accepted a role in a
BBC film after only a week of
starring in Phoenix, a powerful
play based on the real lives of
its cast.
In the play she delivers a gripping performance as a clever,
mouthy teenager living at the
edge of society. Few of the audience realise just to what extent
Jasmine, whose character has a
druggie mother and a wellmeaning, hand-wringing social
worker, is playing herself.
I arrived with low expectations at Hackney Downs Studios
in east London last weekend,
knowing only that this play was
being acted by 12 youngsters
who had all been in care. Few
had acted before. And to make
matters worse, Phoenix is a
promenade performance. There
are no seats and the audience
wander around in their coats, following the action from scene to
scene in a large, chilly, warehouse.
But within 15 minutes I was
hooked. I found myself jostling
to get a better view as the story
moved on and off a giant racetrack in the middle of the floor:
a symbol of the central character’s aspiration to be a champion runner, but also of the
cast’s real-life ambitions to join
a society from which most of
them have been alienated.
The play is the first production from Big House, a new
theatre company that trains
care-leavers to act and perform
somebody who’s had so many
troubles and demons, and be
like a shield to get them through
everything.”
Her childhood was tough.
Her mother was a heroin addict
and her early teenage years were
spent living with her grandmother under the supervision of
social workers. “I hit rock
bottom, I was selling weed and
getting stopped and searched by
police every day. It wasn’t the
life I needed to be living, a
young, beautiful girl standing
on street corners.”
She has nothing good to say
about the social workers who
struggled to cope with her physical aggression. “The social
workers portrayed me as the
worst-behaved child in Westminster. I’m not. I was a bad
kid, don’t get me wrong. We all
do stupid things when we’re
younger, it’s part of growing
up. I went down the wrong
road and my behaviour went
out the window. But I thought,
‘OK, if I’m the worst child, I’ll
be it then.’ ”
I ask her about the wellmeaning but ineffectual social
worker in Phoenix. The character says things such as “I’ll
look into it”, and “there’s a
process for that”. Jasmine
admits she had a hand in the
way those scenes were written.
“They always say, ‘I’ll speak to
my manager,’” she says. “And I
say, ‘No, I’ll speak to your manager.’ I want to tell social services: never judge us for our
past, we can always achieve
new things and be better.”
She says foster care was a
turning point. “I’d dropped out
of school. But thanks to my brilliant foster mum I left with
four GCSEs.”
It was Westminster council
that found her that foster
mother, but she won’t thank
the authority. And she feels
that acting has done something even her foster mum
could not. “I’ve learnt how to
channel my anger into acting,”
she says. “Without Big House I
think I would be in prison.”
There has been an explosion
of interest in Jasmine. Her
short film with the BBC, Invincible, comes out next year. And
she has been asked back for a
recall after auditioning for a big
Hollywood film.
“I want to be careful who I
involve myself with in the
industry,” she says, shrewdly.
“I don’t know the ins and outs
yet. But I know Maggie will
keep me safe.”
Big House does not aim to
turn most care-leavers into
actors, even though the quality
of many of the performances in
Phoenix is exceptional. Laura
Isherwood plays the mother of
the central character so convincingly that I assumed she
was a professional actress in
her thirties. In fact she is 23 and
bipolar.
Rather, Big House seeks to
find them “normal” jobs and
qualifications. Each actor will
get a mentor for a year after the
play is over. So many local
people have signed up to be
mentors that there is already a
waiting list. “Care-leavers don’t
want social care professionals,”
says Norris. “They’re fed up
with them. They want warm,
consistent, positive role models
who can befriend them, give
parental guidance.”
Where does Jasmine see herself in five years’ time? “I’d see
my name up in lights, my face
on billboards. And I want my
little sister to be able to say,
‘That’s my big sister on TV.’
She’s 11. I want her to look at
me as the role model that I
never used to be.”
Phoenix is running at Hackney
Downs Studios at 7.45pm every
night until December 14, with a
3pm matinee on Saturday;
bighousetheatre.org.uk or 0203
095 9754
‘‘
I hit rock
bottom. I
was selling
weed on
street corners
plays using material from their
own lives. It is the brainchild of
Maggie Norris, who directed
the West End hit Bad Girls and
produced the film Mrs Ratcliffe’s Revolution starring
Catherine Tate. Six years ago
Norris started volunteering in
prisons. She says she was
stunned to discover that 40% of
young offenders have been in
foster care or local authority
care.
“A lot of them are alienated
from authority,” says Norris.
“They come to us with a suitcase
load of broken attachments.
They’ve had a succession of
changing social workers and
have dropped out of every
course. Theatre is a fantastic
way to engage and excite them.
They want the consistency,
warmth, almost parental support, which is what we provide.”
Jasmine, a thin, nervy teenager with an attractive, fineboned face, lights up when she
talks about Norris.
“She cares about me like I’m
her own child. You don’t meet
many adults who would take
08.12.13
7
JEREMY YOUNG
Jasmine Jobson
says she would
be in prison if
she had not
learnt how to
channel her
anger into acting