Ian stirs it on the acting mix

IAN McSHANE is growing increasingly concerned with the lack of opportunity for performers from working- class backgrounds.

He believes the acting fraternity is in danger of becoming an exclusive group for the upper classes again. “I came up in the 1960s when all of that went out of the window. Now we’ve got it back again,” says the Blackburn- born 73- yearold whose own father was a professional footballer.

“Today, with no grants no working- class kids can afford to go to drama school, so it’s all the people who have come through at Eton, Harrow, Cambridge and Oxford. We’re seeing the age of the gentleman actor back again.”

Ian, a former member of the National Youth Theatre, admits of the likes of Old Etonian Eddie Redmayne or Old Harrovian Benedict Cumberbatch: “That’s not to say they’re not good. But it doesn’t make for an all- round mix of actors. I’ve no idea if I would have made it coming through today.”

Ironically, last night he starred as a millionaire in ITV’s Dr Thorne opposite public school- educated

Tom Hollander, who caused a furore last week when he said it was simply “fashionable to sound posh”.