Christmas Creativity

With a large youth theatre there was need to present the performances over the course of a day, but what a delightful and joyous day it was.  Every presentation was wonderfully staged to show the talents and progress made by the young people involved and to entertain the gathered capacity audiences of family and friends.

We commenced with Emerald Company sharing their own interpretation of ‘The Elves and the Shoemaker’.  A touching opening with a small child alone at Christmas moving to ‘All By Myself’ was soon interrupted by some lively and colourful elves.  We saw the elves re-tell the story with excellent actions, movement and wonderfully delivered narrative (for example “To  comprehend the wonder of what has happened tonight” – so clearly projected that I could remember it!).  There were lovely expressions and this group of 7 – 12 year olds competently, cleverly and creatively got across the importance messages of ‘Teamwork and the importance of cheerfulness’.  Not forgetting the wonderful lively ending.  Very well done.

Yellow Company, who are also aged 7 -12, borrowed an idea from the late Queen and involved a very famous bear in their Christmas message.  ‘Paddington’s Nativity’ was a new story written by Sarah Osborne (with thanks to Michael Bond) and looks at how Paddington copes when he is drafted in to act as a King in the Brown Children’s School Nativity.  With lovely narration to remind us of the origins of this marmalade loving bear, the cast proceeded to share his new adventure in an engaging and entertaining way.  There was super movement between scenes and some clever interaction between the cast who were ‘acting’ as the audience.  There was good use of properties and the Company quickly cleared the stage area, once they had brought the story to a beautiful conclusion.  Very entertaining.

The story of the much-loved wooden puppet Pinocchio has been told in many ways, but Sapphire Company (aged 11-16) had worked to devise and input to the script to add several twists and to cleverly demonstrate a deeper exploration of feelings and emotion.  The well-developed characters wore muted colours of grey, red, blue and black and used a very creative way to illustrate how Pinocchio’s nose grew.  The performers were all expressive and the production was well-paced.    The actors made good use of the highs and lows in the story as well as excellent choral interludes and movement.  This was a creative and inspiring piece by the very talented group.  Congratulations to everyone involved.

‘Love Language at Christmas’ was a clever piece devised by Black Company which explored the meaning of Christmas and how it impacts on young people in today’s world who are also dealing with a myriad of other life-events.  Taking seven individual characters each actor reflected on the impact of Christmas on their life, loves and family.  They used various communication methods including phones, journals, letters and emails and considered traditions surrounding religion, work, pressure, family and romance.  The monologues were realistic and delivered, where appropriate, with great humour.  Concluding with the establishment of New Years resolutions the seven actors did an excellent job of bringing some of the more worrying parts of the holiday season into the open.  Movement between scenes and use of atmospheric music added to the piece and these talented actors, aged 16 – 22 should be very proud of themselves.

Gold Company (aged 14-19) retold the story of the Nine Dancing Princesses in ‘The Worn Out  Shoes’ which had been adapted by Sarah Osborne.  With a strong cast and clever story telling this was an entertaining piece.  Each ‘princess’ showed her own character, through gestures and movement.  There was subtle use of props and excellent use of expression.  The King, Queen, Collins, Prince Casper and Winston Daly all worked hard to resolve the mystery of the worn-out shoes, but it was left to a former soldier to engage the audience and mystical voices to bring it to its conclusion.  There was wonderful clarity of diction and beautiful use of expressive language.   The piece was also enhanced by the use of movement and dance.  Congratulations to Gold Company.

Some individuals also took the opportunity to share pieces from their recent LAMDA examination and with presentations as diverse as ‘Macbeth’ and ‘The Stepsister Fights Back’ it was great to see the breadth of genres studied.  As with all YTYT productions the golden thread throughout the showcase was the wonderful empathy between the actors on stage and the incredible diction and delivery.  There wasn’t a single performer who failed to speak clearly and with children as young as 7 years old this really is excellent.  Every story and every LAMDA presentation was beautifully done and the technical abilities of this group never fail to impress.  Well done to the whole team along with the YTYT volunteers who provided technical (including excellent music and sound effects), backstage and Front of House support.

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