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SAVE OUR SCHOOL OF STARDOM; (1) Staunch defenders: James McAvoy, left, and Dr Who star David Tennant, below, are determined the Academy must carry on as a centre of excellence (2) Fame school graduates: Hannah Gordon, left, and Robert Carlyle, above, are backing the Academy, along with David Hayman, Ruby Wax and Bill Paterson.

Article Excerpt
Byline: JIM MCBETH

EVERY day for the past eight years, James McAvoy has experienced thesense that he is living parallel lives. In the first, he has become a wealthyHollywood star. In the other, he is a very different character - an aimless,angry drunk whose future has dissipated before it reaches the next desolatestreet corner.

The actor believes the paths to these diametrically opposite places diverged in2000, on the steps of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. It was anew millennium and a fresh start for the Drumchapel boy.

Studying at Glasgow's version of London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art -Scotland's only conservatoire - was a passport to another country for thefuture star of The Last King of Scotland. But he is conscious of what mighthave been.

'Without it, I'd be on a corner drinking Buckfast,' he says unequivocally.

This week, he raised his voice to demand that an economic 'restructuring' ofRSAMD - to close a [pounds sterling]600,000 budget gap - should not be allowed to affect itsability to produce actors of the highest calibre. It was a call to arms takenup by many like him.

With less than half of the funding of RADA, the 163-year-old Scottishinstitution traditionally produces a disproportionately high number of stargraduates.

They include...

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