Acting BA

Apply your passion and complete your training at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire – we offer drama school level training to mould you into a versatile actor and help you launch your career.

Our BA (Hons) Acting is designed to develop you practically, personally and professionally and prepare you for this challenging industry. We have carefully designed a contemporary course that will train you for a creative career in front of a stage, screen or radio audience. You will receive specialist training in voice, movement and singing, graduating with the skill and aptitude to take on the exciting and dynamic world of the dramatic arts.

According to the Guardian League Table 2026, Royal Birmingham Conservatoire's acting and performance provision is in the top 10 in the UK for Drama and Dance.

This course equips you with the skills you need to become a professional actor; continually stretching and challenging you to reach new levels of personal achievement and self-discovery. As a vocational actor training course, full commitment and attendance would be expected.

What's covered in this course?

Complete your training in a supportive environment alongside your dedicated peers. With a proactive attitude you will achieve the high-standard of skill and adaptability that is required of professional actors in the industry today

Your classes will mainly be studio-based sessions, focusing on the practical application of acting, voice, movement and singing. For some modules you will have timetabled rehearsal time, where you will work in groups to produce material.

During the final year of your training you will get the opportunity to make a show reel, perform showcases to industry professionals, and be cast in professional productions staged in external theatres. In the first two years you will apply and develop your skills, getting regular opportunities to perform to your peer group and to invited audiences.

You can find our graduates all over the industry

Graduates of this course have gone on to craft successful and inspiring careers across the entire spectrum of the industry, including actors such as Rob Mallard – best known for his role in Coronation Street for which he won the award for Best Newcomer at the 2017 British Soap Awards, and Helen George, who played Trixie Franklin in Call the Midwife. Airing in early 2017, new Channel 4 comedy from the producers of Father Ted Derry Girls stars 2011 graduate Nicola Coughlan.

Our graduates can also be found on stage in musicals, for example Dominic Hartley Harris has appeared in the West End in Bat out of Hell and Beautiful - The Carole King Musical, and Lewis Howard played the Heart of Joey in War Horse. Our graduates are flexible and entrepreneurial, and in some cases have gone on to start their own companies – Theatre 63, a theatre company founded by our graduates, was nominated for the National Student Drama Festival (NSDF) 2017 Edinburgh Award. We also produce successful writers and directors – playwright Charlene James has won a number of awards, including for her well-received play Cuttin It, and Gemma Colclough directed The Hunting of the Snark at the Vaudeville Theatre in the West End.

This course is based the School of Acting at Ruskin Hall in Bournville.

Please note: we’re unable to consider applications from applicants who will be under the age of 18 from the date that the course starts teaching in September. This is in order for us to comply with our safeguarding duties as some course content can be adult in nature, in addition to the very high demands of the course.