Taylor
Bobby Stallwood

In 'Faith, Hope and Charity' at the National Theatre, Bobby Stallwood had the line that audiences couldn’t forget: “When we’re hungry, we go to sleep.” He played ‘Marc' in the final part of Alexander Zeldin’s trilogy of plays about inequality in the UK; along with his mother ‘Beth' (played by Susan Lynch), he’s a regular at a community centre threatened by cuts that provides a vital foodbank service. That line, a heart-breaking strategy for survival, was based on the experiences of a real family.

This was the second time that Stallwood, 17, had worked with Zeldin, who he describes as “a very special, unique director”. “He comes in with a script. We read it, then he throws it away and gets us to improvise it. Then he writes what we’ve improvised,” Bobby explains. To help devise their characters, Zeldin sent Stallwood and Lynch into Waterloo with just £1.50 and asked them to find a present for ‘Hazel', the character who ran the community centre (played by Cecilia Noble).

Currently living in Walthamstow with his family, Stallwood has dyslexia and couldn’t wait to leave school. He never knew acting was a career choice - “I just loved attention, really” - and has been training at RAW Academy, a professional performing arts college in Waltham Forest, for the past eight years. “It’s a real stepping stone for people to find their feet in this world.”
He looks up to Lennie James and castmate Nick Holder, actors with similar working-class backgrounds to his own, and in future he’s keen to play more characters like Marc, “real people who don’t have a voice”. The show has left a strong political impact: “I can no longer walk past a homeless person without stopping to help.” What’s on Stage