Theatre saved me from jail, says director

A former Radio 1 DJ who says he was saved from teenage delinquency by theatre has won an award for young directors.

Matthew Xia, 30, of Leytonstone, will now direct his first full-length play thanks to the Genesis Future Directors Award.

He is set to offer a chance to other talented young Londoners in Athol Fugard’s apartheid classic, Sizwe Banzi Is Dead, at the Young Vic from September 18 to 28. Xia, pictured, joined Theatre Royal Stratford East aged 11. He has DJed for Radio 1, Radio 1 Extra and the opening of the Paralympics, as Excalibah.

He said: “I was troubled and troublesome. Without Theatre Royal I’d have been in Feltham [Young Offender Institution].” He praised the Young Vic and Genesis Foundation, set up by banker John Studzinski, for backing talent: “It is nigh-on impossible for working-class urchins like myself to make a career in theatre without [them].