About Us
SimWorks is the simulation service of The Actors Forge, a professional actor training organisation in Newcastle with a community of 120+ members.
Our actors are conservatoire-trained, with experience across stage and screen. They listen, react, and sustain emotionally complex characters under pressure — exactly what clinical simulation demands.
We are not role-play volunteers. We are not student actors. We are trained professionals who bring authentic human unpredictability into the room.
The Actors Forge: SimWorks Ltd · Companies House No. 17178378 · Approved NHS supplier.
Our Mission
SimWorks bridges the gap between professional training and real human experience.
The hardest moments, breaking bad news, managing grief, anger, silence, can't be rehearsed with a mannequin or learned from a textbook. They need a real person who can listen, react, and hold the weight of the room.
The same is true in leadership, conflict, and customer-facing pressure: the conversations that shape culture and trust.
That's what our actors do.
We place professionally trained performers into NHS, higher education, emergency services, and corporate settings, creating training that feels real, because the people in it are real.
Our Goals
Set a new standard for actor-led simulation across the North East and beyond.
Provide meaningful, paid work for professional actors in the region.
Partner with educators and training leads to create measurable change in how people communicate.
Build a library of scenarios that scale, from a single OSCE station to a Trust-wide broadcast.
Offer the best in corporate scenario training.
Our Commitment
Every actor is briefed, prepared, and trusted to deliver at the highest standard. Each has trained with us for at least two years, is rigorously vetted, and holds current DBS certification.
We work within your existing frameworks or build new material with you, flexing to any format or scale and treat every scenario with the emotional care it deserves.
We pay our actors fairly, every time. And we build long-term partnerships, not one-off transactions.
How we work
Your scenario, our actor - You bring the brief: clinical, emergency, educational, or corporate. We bring the actors, working within your framework, objectives, and debrief. Full day, half day, or single station.
Fully improvised - We give the actor a character and a situation; they respond in real time to whatever your people bring into the room. No script, no safety net — the unpredictability that produces the deepest learning.
Scenario development - We don't just perform the material, we write and produce it. Bespoke scenarios built with your clinical, training, or L&D leads, from conflict resolution to leadership.
Simple to work with - One supplier, one invoice, straightforward for procurement. We're not VAT registered, so the price quoted is the price paid.
Let’s Work Together
Whether you're an NHS Trust, a university, a simulation centre, or a corporate team, we'd love to talk. We can arrange an introductory conversation, share our rate card, or run a taster session so you can experience the model before committing.
The Actors Forge: SimWorks Ltd
2nd Floor, The Old Casino
Forth Place
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE1 5HX
Address:
The Actors Forge Studio, 2nd Floor, Forth Lane, Newcastle Upon Tyne, NE1 5HX
Hours:
Monday–Friday
10am–6pm
Email:
craig@theactorsforge.com