Two leading lights from our BA (Hons) Drama degree have taken advantage of Edge Hill University’s ongoing partnerships within the theatre industry and secured substantial work experience with a professional theatre company.
Third Year Drama student Josh Armstrong discovered his passion for acting at four. He made his debut at 12 in We Will Rock You, and has inhabited a range of characters, from Bill Sykes to Matilda’s Miss Trunchbull, Mrs Doubtfire to Lord Farquaad. We Will Rock You no longer features in a list of his favourite shows, but “it started the domino effect”, got the ball rolling on his pursuit of a thespian life.
Image: Andrew Billington
His ambitions crystallised along the way. Some questioned the wisdom of chasing such a potentially precarious career – “a lot of people said that it’s not so much a goal, it’s more of a dream” – but a professionally-trained pantomime dame isn’t easily dissuaded, and, defiantly straightening his wig, Josh doubled down on his dreams:
“I went, ‘this is something that I enjoy, this is something that I’m quite good at.’ I’m going to make it my goal and not just a dream.”
He set about finding the right course.
“Coming into uni, choosing my options, I thought there’s obviously acting degrees, but then there’s drama degrees. I chose the drama degree, looking at performance holistically and seeing what makes good theatre. Not just the actor, but also the director, the producer, the lighting designer, the stage manager, and all the nooks and crannies that make a brilliant show.”
He found Edge Hill’s BA (Hons) in Drama, and since starting the course, Josh has been in around 25 shows, and been part of the student team that took Frankenstein: the Musical all the way to South Korea, where he performed in front of 2,000 people:
“The knees shake and the breath starts going, but as soon as you hit that stage, you’re a completely different character. You’re not you anymore, you’re the character. You use that energy, it gives you a bit of oomph.”
And a visceral reminder of why he does what he does.
Nathan Bagnall has just completed his Drama degree here at Edge Hill. He had similar ambitions:
“I wanted to go into acting, but I’ve also always been very interested in [the production] side of things. It’s why I came here instead of an acting school or a heavily acting-based university. I’d rather broaden my mindset, get looking into things, because I’ve always been interested in DIY stuff, building stuff, you know.”
Image: Andrew Billington
And during his time at Edge Hill, Nathan threw himself into in-house productions, rolling up his sleeves and getting stuck into whatever role he was required to play, whether in the spotlight or behind the scenes, helping out with sets, solving the many problems that crop up in the course of staging a show, learning skills for life…“and I just loved it. It’s also a more stable career than acting itself, because they’re always looking for technicians and production people to build things.”
But where’s the story here? Enter stage left senior producer Alex Moran (below, front row, with Nathan and Josh), guiding light of independent touring company Thunder Road, and dedicated horror-phile. After graduating, Alex started Thunder Road in 2011 “with £50 from my nan…it was a vessel at the beginning to just be in more shows as an actor. I wanted to make my own work, rather than hope I’d get auditions all the time.” The Woman in Black was his favourite-ever theatre experience, and Alex wanted “to specialise in original, cinematic horror shows that fuse multimedia, storytelling, and illusion.” Built on his addiction to thrills and spills, then, Thunder Road produced a string of shows like Jekyll and Hyde, The Invisible Man and The Body Snatcher. He hooked up with a maverick multimedia boffin and director, Ryan Simons, and together they created Shock Horror, a show inspired by theatrical ghost stories and spooky cinema. Rave reviews and full, if a little jumpy, houses followed.
As did the pandemic, and around 2022, taking stock after a pandemic-induced two-year hiatus, Alex had another moment of inspiration. Children were the future. With funding from Arts Council England, Thunder Road started putting on horror workshops in schools and colleges around the UK. The idea, based on his own passions and the obstacles he himself had to overcome, is to open doors – to their imagination, to creative opportunity, and to real opportunity, in the shape of work experience with a professional company.
“We want to bring more young people into theatres. They like horror. We only do horror. They like to be scared. So the target audience is right. But you can only do that, you can only reach those people and resonate with people if you’ve got young people, who are the experts of being young, helping you first.”
Which is Josh and Nathan’s cue. Edge Hill’s Drama department, based in our professional-standard Arts Centre, was an early adopter of the workshops – Nathan was certainly impressed as they found their way into his final-year dissertation. And this developing partnership gave Alex the opportunity to explore the possibility of inviting student volunteers to help out on his latest venture, The Void. He’s journeyed into deep space for this show, blending sci-fi with horror. Alex describes it as a mash-up of Alien and The Thing, and introduces the perfect villain for these times: AI.
Alex worked with the Uni’s Careers, Employability and Experience (CEE) team to find willing and able student collaborators.
“This partnership with Thunder Road demonstrates the value of bringing employers and students together through meaningful real-world experiences,” says Kate Stafford, Faculty Consultant with the CEE team. “Our team works with organisations across all sectors to create opportunities such as placements, guest speaking and curriculum-based projects, helping students develop the skills, confidence and industry insight needed for their future careers.”
Josh and Nathan had worked on several in-house productions alongside senior theatre technician Richard Walker-Glen, who acted as both mentor and facilitator. They met Alex, and, suitablv impressed, he cast them in the roles of stage manager and venue production manager respectively.
And you can detect a note of pride in Josh’s voice when he now declares, “I’m like a handyman with the amount of tools under my belt. If you need anything screwed, nailed, I’ve got a wrench for that and a screwdriver for this.”
Image: Andrew Billington
Meanwhile Nathan, as venue production manager, “oversees the building, the set. A bit of a problem solver. If they want anything changing on the set, you know, get it built or pull it out and break it down. If there are wires in the wrong place, sort them out, move things. And also help with the technicians, with the lighting, the sound, stuff like that. And it’s also my job to power everything up, power everything down, lock up, make sure everything’s in the right place, make sure everything’s working.”
Image: Andrew Billington
“I’ve not done professional stage management before,” continues Josh. “Being able to format a report, being able to work off schedules, the levels of communication and the rotas that I have to do as a stage manager, getting emails at 8 o’clock at night saying this is what we’re doing tomorrow. But it’s also just working with completely and utterly new people that I’ve never met before, and I’ve made some really good connections.”
The partnership has been a success on multiple levels, said Rob Fairfield, Employer Engagement Adviser in EHU’s Careers team:
“It was so rewarding to see the positive impact Thunder Road has had on Joshua and Nathan throughout their employability journey. The support, guidance and opportunities they’ve provided have clearly made a real difference to their confidence and development.”
For small companies like Thunder Road, ingenuity and partnerships can save you thousands, or make your production look a million dollars. Alex’s approach to theatre-making is both pragmatic and creative, and collaboration is a cornerstone of his philosophy. If you have an idea, he wants to hear it. If you have a unique skill, he’ll see how it can be put to good use. Multimedia tools and techniques are pretty impressive these days, and can be tweaked to enhance the show.
With The Void, Josh and Nathan were thrown in at the deep end, in the best way: helping to build a set that takes a full day to erect. It’s a classic take on a functional deep-space industrial environment. Alien meets Red Dwarf, laughs replaced by chills. And in line with Alex’s collaborative philosophy to the creative process, Nathan suggested changes to the ship’s AI screen, a central element of the set:
“It’s really fun to trying to figure out how they’re doing it, you know? So it provokes a lot of creative ideas. It’s got my mind going all over the place. Just being like, ‘oh, that’d be really cool to do this or that could be really good like that.”
Image: Andrew Billington
Those suggestions were fully taken on board.
To keep audiences on their toes, The Void has several different endings, so even if you’ve seen one version there are still surprises in store, some perhaps originating in the minds of Josh and Nathan.
Hopefully, though, this is just the beginning of Josh and Nathan’s stories – they’ve already been lined up for more – paid! – work with Thunder Road if all the stars align, which would a huge step up the career ladder for them.
It’s often said that in space no-one can hear you scream. As long as they can hear the audience screaming, Josh and Nathan will know they’ve done their jobs well.
October 7, 2026
