JIMAND ALLOTEY

Captivated by her recent performance in Around the World… Susan Elkin wanted to discover more about this engaging young actor and her route into the profession.

Jimand Allotey, 26, is warmly, infectiously effervescent. She and I are chatting in a coffee shop at London Bridge because I had seen her sparky work in Spontaneous Production’s open air Around the World in Eighty Days a couple of weeks earlier and wanted to know more about her and her career. I organise her chai latte and get out my notebook.

“I was born in Epsom and I still have family in Surrey, but I grew up in Ghana because my parents went back for work. So I have a foot firmly in both camps” she chuckles.

“And I suppose it all began at home with all those Disney Movies such as

The Lion King along with The Sound of Music and The King and I. I just loved musicals” says Jimand, who shares accommodation in London with her two younger brothers. One is at boarding school and the other at university.

Then in year 7 at her international school in Accra, they did Annie and staged it at the National Theatre there. “That became an annual event. Later I was in school productions of

The Sound of Music, The Music Man,

Joseph, Aida and Les Miserables”.

Although the stereotypical middle class Ghanaian parent wants sons and daughters to become doctors, lawyers or start businesses, Jimand tells me hers are different. “My mum is very artistic, although not professionally, so she’s always been very supportive.

She actually guest directed a couple of the shows at my school, so I wasn’t allowed any diva moments! And, when after Les Mis, which was a bit of a clincher, I realised that this really was something I could do both she and my dad were positive and encouraging.”

So where to train? “Tricky. Should

I stay in Ghana? My mum suggested I use my UK background and train here, but then it was difficult to know whether to do a conservatoire or university training”. In the end she plumped for a drama degree at University of Kent with the thought that she could do some sort of conservatoire training – maybe an MA – afterwards if necessary. “I usually flew home for holidays” she grins. There’s a boyfriend in Ghana who works in banking.

Jimand is upbeat about her degree (as she is about most things) although, as it wasn’t a conservatoire course, there was no show case at the end of it and no professional guidance about, for example, getting an agent or finding work. When she graduated in 2017, her parents advised her to stay in the UK. So she did, taking a front of house job at Marble Arch Theatre. “That was the first professional theatre I’d ever been involved with” she says, and it opened her eyes about how theatre actually works as well as giving her the opportunity to rub shoulders with the many big names (she mentions Cameron Mackintosh) who passed through.

“In the end, advised by friends, I signed up with Mandy Theatre Professionals and that got me a job on a TV documentary series called The Real Story of… It included re-enactments of things like the Boston Strangler case”.

Then, introduced by a friend, she met Jonathan Kaufmann who runs Sydenham-based Spontaneous Productions. “Jonathan wanted me to do a show about Anansi. African folk tales! Perfect fit and it was such fun! She has now worked with Jonathan on eight shows including Pinocchio, The Snow Queen, Puss in Boots and Around the World in Eighty

Days where I spotted her in August. They perform at the Sydenham Centre or, in summer, outdoors in nearby Mayow Park.

“Around the World in Eighty Days was the most ambitious yet” she says gleefully.

“We had a bigger cast, a stage crew and proper tech” Meanwhile Jimand has also worked for radio in Ghana. “Oh and I did get an agent in the end!”

She tells me that she’s looking forward to a revival of Sinbad the Sailor with Jonathan this autumn and resolutely awaiting the Big Break. “It could come in 20 or 30 years time – or tomorrow.

I can be patient”. When I push her she says that her ambitions include being cast in Hamilton and singing

Eponine in Les Mis as a professional, having once done it at school.

I’m fascinated by her voice. She is speaking to me in crisp clear RP. In Around the World in Eighty Days as Passepartout her French accent was pretty convincing. I imagine she can drop into standard Ghana accent? Gales of laughter. “Yes it always fascinates people I work with if my mum phones and my voice changes” she says, giving me an entertaining demonstration. “I can do most American regions too and various other accents” she says, throwing some samples into the mix and getting more and more ebullient. She must have worked hard with a voice coach, I suggest? More laughter. “No. I just listen to radio!”

Jimand is an unusual alumna for her school back in Accra and, therefore, much in demand as a mentor. Things are gradually changing and there are now more school students considering performing arts careers. “I go back and do talks and so on” she says, adding that there’s no drama taught in schools in Ghana. “It’s all extra-curricular – through clubs, for instance”

Jimand believes the only sort of evangelising you should do is by showing others how happy you are… and she certainly does that.