ADAM ISDALE

TOUCAN ROAR FOUNDER AND DIRECTOR

WRITER, DIRECTOR AND PERFORMING ARTS TEACHER

Creativity has always been important to me. When I was young, I used to create shows in my family living room, direct movies with my dad’s camcorder and I even used to write songs about saving the world.

However I wasn’t an academic student and as a primary school child I was extremely shy. I never had a supportive outlet for my creativity whilst at school and I found my confidence decreasing. By the time I reached secondary school, I was too scared to hold a conversation.

However, at secondary school, I started to take weekly drama lessons. These lessons along with school plays and assembly  performances reignited the spark within me. I started to fall in in love with performing on stage. My confidence and self-esteem grew and I went on to study Performing Arts at degree level and now work in theatre and television. 

As many people know, an actor often has to take on side jobs when we aren’t landing the acting work. In my early career, this saw me taking on multiple jobs, working six days a week in retail and hospitality, which just didn’t resonate with me. I wasn’t using any of my creativity and I started to quickly lose the confidence that I worked so hard to achieve. Luckily, I was offered a job to cover a friend’s drama class at a stage school. I had never taught before, but I threw myself into the chaos - it was glorious.

I taught for 13 years at the school and even saw some of my pupils go on to become professional actors. During this period, I started to focus on writing and directing. Soon enough, I found myself being asked to write and direct year six productions. This led me to start working independently at schools (at that time we were called Roar), teach internationally and become Head of Performing Arts at a primary school.

Adding Toucan a little later I fully established Toucan Roar Ltd in 2022, when I started my first after school club. Combining my passion for education and creativity, I set out to create a company that would inspire and empower young minds. I am now supported by a team of industry professionals, some of whom are listed below, who help teach Toucan Roar’s classes and workshops and help me fully achieve Toucan Roar’s objectives. 

Toucan Roar is here to help children have fun, laugh and allow them to be themselves. We want children to feel important and confident in their own skin. Our work will enable them to connect with their own creativity whilst developing their performance skills.