The Oxford School of Drama

Audition Panel - Ashley Byam

Ashley trained on The Oxford School of Drama’s Three Year Acting Course, graduating in 2014. That year he was cast by Brian Helgeland for a small part in the Kray Twins biopic Legend (2015), opposite Tom Hardy before filming The Legend of Tarzan (2016). More recently he has appeared in the BBC/Netflix drama Giri/Haji and the BBC’s Death in Paradise.

Ashley is also an accomplished stage actor. Recent credits include Absolute Hell, directed by Joe Hill-Gibbins at the National Theatre in London, as well as an international tour of The Velveteen Rabbit (Unicorn Theatre). 

Ashley is  also co-founder of the new multi-disciplinary production company ALINEMENT Productions (with two fellow Oxford graduates from his year). The company specialises in telling stories centred around the Global Majority, Female and LGBTQI+ characters. Ashley is currently working on a short film that he wrote during lockdown which he will also produce and direct.

Seamus Allen

Seamus trained in his hometown, Dublin at the Conservatory of Music and Drama. After graduating he toured nationally with some of Ireland’s premier children’s theatre companies, as well as developing and performing clown performances for Barrabbas, and magic shows for Cahoots N.I. 

Since moving to the UK Seamus has appeared in The Tempest, As You Like It, Comedy of Errors, Macbeth and Robin Hood (Creation Theatre Company), Quest (Folklore Presents) The Disappearance (The Sticking Place),and Where’s My Desi Soulmate? (Rifco Arts). Tv work includes Bear Behaving Badly (Thames Valley).  Seamus is also a skilled improviser, training with Ken Campbell’s School of Night and core cast in the annual London 50 hour Improvathons and performs with “Austentatious, The improvised Jane Austen Novel”.  

Seamus was the director of the Young Company at the Watermill theatre in Newbury. He established Readings only Improvisation comedy club, “What’s the Game?! Improv”, hosting shows as well as coaching professional performers.  Seamus was Head of acting at Read college, a course which he wrote and which became one of the most successful Foundation courses for getting students into the top acting degree programmes in the UK.  Most recently he has been Head of Year at Drama Studio London and gained an MSc in Performance Psychology focusing on excellence in actor training.

Seamus is Head of Foundation and teaches on the Foundation Courses