Elliot Barnes-Worrell
Inclusion programmes have lost momentum inside many large organisations. The language is contested, the metrics are awkward, and the people meant to benefit often describe the experience as performative. The harder question for leaders is how to build cultures where new voices actually shape the work, not simply appear in the room.
Elliot Barnes-Worrell is a Royal Shakespeare Company and National Theatre actor, writer and director who helps organisations understand inclusion as a creative and cultural discipline rather than a compliance exercise.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Elliot Barnes-Worrell
- A first-hand account of how inclusion plays out inside institutions known for being difficult to enter: the RSC, the National Theatre, the Almeida, and the BBC.
- Academic standing alongside the performance career. Guest lecturer at Oxford, Cambridge, Durham, Brown and Howard, with a published interest in race and representation in Shakespeare.
- A writer-director’s view of how creative cultures actually commission and back new voices, drawn from his own films The Works (BBC) and DIGGING (Film4).
- Range across keynote, masterclass and panel formats, with a tone that works for senior corporate audiences and for early-career and graduate populations inside the same organisation.
Biography highlights
- Royal Shakespeare Company company member, 2013 to 2014, with roles in Henry IV, Richard II and The Two Gentlemen of Verona.
- Horatio in Hamlet at the Almeida Theatre; Henry Straker in Man and Superman at the National Theatre.
- Screen credits include ITV’s Jericho and Van der Valk, Soon Gone: A Windrush Chronicle, Dolittle, and Black Mirror: Hotel Reverie.
- Writer and director of The Works (BBC, 2016) with Ralph Fiennes, and DIGGING for Film4, premiered at the London Film Festival.
- Guest lecturer at Oxford, Cambridge, Durham, Brown and Howard universities.
- Alan Bates Award (Actors Centre); Sir John Gielgud Award (Royal Central School of Speech and Drama).
Biography
Most institutional inclusion work fails on the same question. Once a new voice is in the room, does the institution actually let it shape the work, or does it ask the voice to fit in quietly? Barnes-Worrell has spent his career inside the institutions where that question is hardest to dodge: the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre, the Almeida and the BBC.
He trained at the BRIT School and at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, where he graduated with the Sir John Gielgud Award, and went on to win the Alan Bates Award at the Actors Centre. As an actor his stage work includes Horatio in Hamlet at the Almeida and Henry Straker in Man and Superman at the National Theatre, alongside an RSC company year covering Henry IV, Richard II and The Two Gentlemen of Verona. On screen he has appeared in ITV’s Jericho and Van der Valk, in Soon Gone: A Windrush Chronicle, in Dolittle, and in Black Mirror: Hotel Reverie.
In 2016 he moved into writing and directing with The Works for the BBC, featuring Ralph Fiennes, and later wrote and directed DIGGING for Film4, which premiered at the London Film Festival. That second body of work gives him a working view of how creative organisations decide which voices to back, and on what terms.
He also lectures inside the universities most associated with the canon he interrogates: Oxford, Cambridge, Durham, Brown and Howard, with a particular line of work on race and representation in Shakespeare. For corporate audiences, that combination of practitioner credibility and academic standing lets him discuss inclusion as a question of craft and culture, not slogans, in front of senior leaders who have become wary of both.
Key speaking topics
- Inclusion as a cultural and creative discipline
- Race and representation in Shakespeare
- Storytelling and business communication
- Confidence and composure in high-scrutiny settings
- Talent development and emerging voices
- Mental health and wellbeing for performers and creative teams
Ideal for
- Chief People Officers and Heads of DEI rebuilding inclusion programmes after a period of fatigue or political pressure
- Early-careers, graduate and apprenticeship leads designing development programmes for new entrants
- Internal communications and leadership development teams using storytelling as a working skill
- Universities, business schools and arts institutions running cross-disciplinary events on culture and representation
Audience outcomes
- A clearer view of where institutional inclusion efforts stall, drawn from someone who has worked inside the institutions most cited as case studies.
- Specific language for talking about race and representation without resorting to either compliance script or political signalling.
- A practitioner’s account of how creative confidence is built, tested and sustained under public scrutiny.
- A storytelling vocabulary that internal communicators and leaders can use in their own work.