The Thing About Books

What a beautiful sharing by the very talented Yellow Company of Yew Tree Youth Theatre.  Inspired by ‘The Book No One Wanted to Read’ by Richard Ayoade the company devised their own performance to share with their families and friends.   Opening with beautiful movement to cleverly selected music the young performers explored how many different ways there are to read along with the places and times they are at one with a book.  They explained that ‘To read is to……’ do so many things and that the activity can be undertaken anywhere and anytime.

The lines were cleverly switched between the players and all of them spoke with excellent clarity and projection which is very commendable in group of sixteen children ranging from 6 years to 11 years.  They explored their imaginations and creativity then moved into a divided cast arguing, through narrative, about with their differing views on libraries.  The ultimate agreement was that libraries are ‘portals to another dimension’ - a concept with which I agree.

The performers moved on to give us the first line of a book and used their physicality to play out representative montages – this was very well done and most delightful as if featured many of my favourite titles in the wonderful depictions.  The cast shared their own ideas for stories with great enthusiasm and maintained excellent spacing to ensure those speaking could be seen as well as heard.  At the end of the performance their Director, Sarah Osborne, explained that a key element of the work of this group is to develop their portable and transferable skills.  They most definitely did that as well as giving a very enjoyable performance to the audience.

Well done to the whole team along with Alex and Nat, more senior members of YTYT, who provided technical support.

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