Devon LAMDA is led by Jeremy Balfour, an experienced drama teacher, actor and theatre director who has spent much of his career working with young people.

Jeremy trained professionally in acting and musical theatre at Mountview Theatre School before working as an actor, director and workshop leader with theatre companies around the UK. His professional theatre experience has ranged from touring and company work to directing Shakespeare, giving him a practical understanding of performance as well as nurturing his lifelong enthusiasm for theatre.

He later moved into education and has now spent more than 20 years teaching Drama, including many years as Head of Drama at schools across Devon. Most recently, he was Head of Drama at Stover School, where alongside classroom teaching he directed senior productions, wrote and directed productions for younger pupils and ran extracurricular drama.

Jeremy has also worked as a Drama examiner for OCR and Eduqas, marking written work and visiting schools and colleges to assess practical performance.

What he enjoys most, however, is working directly with young people: helping them understand a piece of text, encouraging them to try something they might initially have thought beyond them, and watching their confidence develop through performance.

His approach is warm, encouraging and grounded in decades of experience both on the stage and in the classroom. He believes young people do their best work when they feel comfortable enough to experiment, make mistakes, ask questions and gradually find their own way of performing.

Jeremy holds an MA in Theatre Practice from Exeter University, a PGCE from Surrey University and a BA in Acting & Musical Theatre from Mountview Theatre School, London. He has a DBS certificate on the update service.