Drama schools rejected my son. He has just won his second best actor award

I’m just taking a break from dusting off the mantelpiece (Dust? Who am I kidding? My mantelpiece has topsoil), to share some happy news. The reason I’m cleaning the mantelpiece is to make room for my son’s awards. (Warning! Proud Mum Moment approaching.) Jules has just won his second best actor award for his leading role in the film Love.

He received the first at the Rome International Film Festival and the second at the London Rocks International Film Festival.

When, at 18, my autistic son told me he wanted to be an actor, I was dubious. How do you put the artistic into autistic? But Jules set me straight. “Mum, I’m acting every day – trying to act normal.”

My son is now 32 and what he’s taught me in these intervening years is that there’s no such thing as “normal” and “abnormal”. There’s ordinary and extraordinary. And people on the autistic spectrum have a literal, lateral, tangential logic that is original and intriguing.

With diagnostic hindsight, we now know that many exceptional musicians, mathematicians and scientists, from Mozart and Einstein to Orwell and Steve Jobs, were on the spectrum. Jules, aged eight, became obsessed with Shakespeare and memorised whole slabs of Hamlet. By 12, he knew more about most Hollywood actors than their own mothers. Which is why, despite my misgivings, I set out to find an acting course that would accept him.

This was not easy. Most colleges responded with a flat no. But London’s Regent’s University gave him a chance. They’d never enrolled an autistic pupil before, but the tutors were encouraging and kind – and Jules thrived.

I attended his first class production with trepidation … but much to my relief, Jules shone. Of course, I put my response down to the mum “love goggles” – mothers see all their offspring’s achievements through the foggy lens of maternal adoration. But watching him on stage, effortlessly interacting with the other actors, well, thank goodness for waterproof mascara.

Jules won a college award for excellence and, soon after, graduated wearing academic robes – something his mother has never achieved. (I’m an autodidact – clearly, it’s a word I taught myself.) Having left school at 16 – the only examination I’ve ever passed is my driving test – this was a truly emotional moment.

But Jules’ turning point came when he joined Access All Areas, an agency that only represents learning disabled and autistic actors. When the BBC medical drama Holby City wanted to cast an autistic actor to play an autistic character – possibly a first in TV history – Access sent Jules to audition. When he won the part of Jason, I was so far above cloud nine I had to look down to see it. Hell, I was waving to the space stations.

Jules played Jason on and off, for seven years. He’s now added Endeavour and Midsomer Murders to his CV and is keen to play the first autistic Hamlet, because “Hamlet clearly has anxiety and OCD, plus he doesn’t read emotions, which is why he failed Ophelia.”

Of course, like most actors, he’s currently “resting”. (“Unemployed actor” is a tautology.) But I’m hoping these awards will open more theatrical doors. For this to happen, casting directors need to think outside the neurotypical box. Despite the often high IQs of autistic people (Jules is Wikipedia with a pulse), fewer than 15 per cent are in the workforce – a much lower inclusion rate than other disabilities. (Jules prefers to be called “differently abled”. He says a label is something on the side of a jam jar and “normal” is a setting on a washing machine.)

The reason I’m sharing this news is that I hope Jules’ modest success gives heart to other parents like me. Kids on the spectrum are constantly told they’re wrong or stupid. Their self-esteem is so minuscule it can only be located with a microscope.

My best advice to other parents is to indulge their autistic child’s obsessions. It doesn’t matter if it’s igneous rock formations, Amazonian moth wing fluctuations or Tibetan nose fluting – because you never know where it will take them.

And when I think back to how Jules was bullied at school and how limbo-low his life expectations were, I do allow myself a little moment of light gloating. Light gloating? Who am I kidding? I’m sewing sequins onto my Oscar frock and polishing my tiara!

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