Changing the narrative: Josette Bushell-Mingo

The job of running one of the country's biggest and best drama schools – the world-famous Royal Central School of Speech & Drama – is fraught with challenges. So why on earth would Josette Bushell-Mingo, one of our most versatile and charismatic actors and directors, want to take it on?

She explains: ‘my mission is to defend the arts, and Central is a dynamic, complex, provocative and challenging environment from which to do so.’

It is a time when the provision of university arts courses is diminishing in the UK, and the performing arts sector is already at a low ebb in the wake of covid. Yet Josette, who took up the position earlier this year, takes a more holistic approach, bringing arts education providers in all parts of the UK together to look at the problems and to try to come up with solutions.