NT CONNECTIONS 2020

The Senior Youth Theatre Group took part in a slightly curtailed National Theatre Connections process. However, our performance of A Series of Public Apologies (in response to an unfortunate incident in the school lavatories) by John Donnelly will certainly live long in the memory.

NT Connections is a project that allows school and youth theatre groups from all over the UK to perform new one-act plays, written by professional playwrights specifically for young people, both in home venues and in professional theatres. For us in Northampton, under normal circumstances we perform at the Royal and Derngate as part of the Festival. With the pandemic dramatically altering all facets of society, of course this is not going to be possible this time.

However, we can look back on our amazing Home Performances on Sunday March 15th with enormous pride. Our venue, The Hertford Conference Room 1 at the Park Inn by Radisson Hotel in central Northampton, worked brilliantly for this piece of theatre. The set was all there; we just had to provide the performance elements! And despite this script being a challenging one to perform because of its repetitive nature and its seeming lack of variety, we couldn’t have been more pleased with how our Youth Theatre members stepped up and performed. They were outstanding.

So, it is with huge regret that we say goodbye too early to Alan, to Mr Laurence, to the Senior Leaders at the Latrina Academy Trust and the PR team they hired to resolve this embarrassing incident. We thank our audience for supporting us, our Connections Director for making the trip and John Donnelly for writing the piece. And most importantly, Tim and I thank our brilliant Youth Theatre members. #LongLiveAlan