The Arts Profile Wilberforce of Nature

Reima Baker runs Precinct Theatre, an acting school and management company for children in Packington Estate. The estate is due to be rebuilt this
year and Reima is in the process of finding new premises. On Friday 24th
March the theatre is staging a play about William Wilberforce with funding
from the Peabody Trust. writes Alice Wright


If optimism could be converted into cash, Reima Baker would be a rich
woman. Her premises are due to be knocked down this year and she has
nowhere to move to but is confident that "it will be ok". She says things
have a way of working out for her and, after an hour in her company, you
have to agree.

Reima gets no income from running Precinct Theatre for child actors on
Packingon Estate but happily allows children who can’t afford the fees to come to classes for nothing: “My mother used to say, ‘If you can’t do good, don’t do anything at all, because it will come back to you.’ And I think she was right.” After being made redundant from the bank where she had
worked for 25 years Reima decided to move back to Jamaica to open a guest
house. But her money ran out before she could make the move. At a loose
end, she started doing some chaperoning for child actors. Then she got a
call from child agent, Anna Scher, offering her a job.

Knowing nothing about the business, Reima was apprehensive. She remembers
apologising to her actress sister’s friends for working in a bank and feels
she has no acting talent herself, although she does a hilarious impression
of Anna saying, "Darling, you'd be wonderful, you'd be marvellous, you're a
people person, darling." With nothing to lose, Reima decided to give it a
go. But when Scher was kicked out of her own theatre following a nervous
breakdown, Reima decided to quit. “She'd been running it for 33 years and
those people on the board were supposed to be her friends. I couldn’t work
for people who can do that."
Reima had started chaperoning again when, outof the blue, she got a call from a woman from CBBC: "They were looking for some kids to do something for CBBC and that's how it started. It was just thrown on me and I thought, if I say no to this I might never be givenanother chance. So I started it from home and then I found these premises."
The Precinct Theatre now offers drama classes for local children, who can
be put forward for auditions if they wish. Looking back, Reima thinks if
she had given it too much thought, she may not have taken on such a
challenge. She recalls people coming into the Theatre when it first opened
five years ago: "They'd say, who runs it and I'd say, 'no-one', then I'd
say, 'well, actually, I suppose it's me.'"
With 70 local children now on her books Reima is passionate about what she offers them. She sent her own daughter, Sekina, to Anna Scher to give her the confidence she felt she herself lacked. Sekina is now a stylist for Tatler and Reima describes her as a hugely poised and capable young woman. She says: "I admire that in other people, because it's something I never had. If I can give these kids a chance to stand up and express themselves and have confidence, that's my pay." Daughter Sekina is more practical. Reima says: "She'll ask me, 'Why are you doing this? You’re not getting paid. Why all the hard work? Why don't you just give it up?' But I couldn't do that. I couldn't give it up. When I see the kids doing well it makes me so happy. They're my kids."