Review
Published: Thursday 19 August, 2010 by Christopher Hansford, Bath Chronicle
More than 50 youngsters from in and around Bath will be putting on their gym slips and picking up their jolly hocky sticks to take part in an astonishing theatrical feat at the city's Mission Theatre.
Since the hugely successful production of His Dark Materials by members of Next Stage Youth a couple of years ago, the young people's theatre has swollen from about 20 youngsters to getting on for 60.
Of the 56 paid up members 15 are boys and the rest are girls.
Although the youngsters get all round theatre training in the Next Stage groups what they really all want is to be on stage in a production.
But what do you do with nearly 60 young people?
The answer was to perform Sparkleshark which has great parts for boys and which was performed several weeks ago and team it with Denise Deegan's hilarious play Daisy Pulls It Off – but with three separate casts.
The logistics of rehearsing them all – with the extra problem of family holidays thrown in during key rehearsal times – has proved a bit of a nightmare for staff at the theatre.
However, the shows are all set to go ahead with the youngest cast doing performances from Tuesday to Thursday, August 24 to 26.
The older ones are putting on their shows from Tuesday, August 31 to September 4 all at 7.30pm but with a matinee on Saturday, September 4 at 2.30pm.
Many of the older youngsters have been with Next Stage Youth for years and so have either moved on to direct shows, become part of the technical team or join the adults in the main Next Stage company. Some, like Giles Cooper, went on to train professionally. Giles is currently to be seen at the National Theatre.
It is company policy to use as many youngsters as possible in the adult shows. Five recently took part in Cat On A Hot Tin Roof.
Daisy Pulls It Off is a take off of all those jolly hockey sticks novels from the 1930s set in girls' boarding schools.
In the play Daisy is determined not to let her East London background and elementary education stand in her way when she wins a place as the first-ever scholarship pupil at Grangewood Schools for Girls.
She tries her utmost to be a perfect schoolgirl and prove to doubting staff and snobbish fellow pupils that she can be at home at Grangewood.
However her classmates have other ideas and will stop at nothing to ruin Daisy's reputation and make sure she is the first and last scholarship girl ever to set foot on Grangewood's hockey fields.
For tickets at £8/6 to any of the shows call the box office on 01225 428600 or 01225 463362.
Autumn enrolment for Next Stage Youth is on Sunday, October 3 from 5pm to 6pm at the Mission Theatre. Call 01225 428600 for more details.
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