Newbury Youth Theatre heads for Edinburgh Fringe: Break a leg guys!
Newbury Youth Theatre’s The Fantastical World of My Uncle Arly opens at the Edinburgh Fringe on Monday and plays to Saturday at 3.10pm, Venue 152 Paradise in Augustines. This week they treated their hometown to a special preview of The Fantastical World of My Uncle Arly ahead of their Edinburgh run - break a leg NYT!
Newbury Youth Theatre: The Fantastical World of My Uncle Arly at Arlington Arts, Snelsmore
on Wednesday, July 31
Review by LIN WILKINSON
NOW in their 41st year, Newbury Youth Theatre previewed their new production at Arlington Arts, prior to performing it at the Edinburgh Fringe, to which they have toured for over 20 years. It’s a remarkable record.
Their productions are always an adventure, for performers and audience, because this year, as always, the young cast have worked collaboratively in rehearsal, improvising, devising and developing the production in conjunction with their directors Tony and Amy Trigwell-Jones.
Thus the piece changes and grows with each performance.
Edward Lear’s biography, charting his extraordinary life, was the starting point. Born to a wealthy stockbroker and his wife, Lear was the youngest of 20 children: meals were a trial of competitive eating, very cleverly evoked by the cast. The ‘modestly rich’ family fell into debt because of his father’s poor investments, and Lear was brought up by his sister. A Victorian eccentric and illustrator, he suffered ill-health yet travelled the world.
The young performers, aged between just 12 and 17, really own this production. All NYT’s enjoyable hallmarks were on show: an imaginative ensemble approach, clever use of physical theatre, playfulness, comedy, inventive movement, visual metaphor, inclusivity - and an enormous sense of fun. Musicians among the cast added another dimension to the production.
Minimally and imaginatively staged, two boxes served as multi-purpose props, including dressing-up boxes, which were raided on stage for multiple changes of roles and colourful costumes.
It is for Lear’s limericks and nonsense poems that he’s best loved, of course, and several were featured, including The Owl and the Pussy Cat, The Pobble Who Lost his Toes, and, reflecting his time in India, the poem The Cummerbund.
As these talented youngsters set off on their Edinburgh adventure – and conscious of the age of the youngest performers – some clearer diction and slower delivery of lines will allow their audiences to savour every word of Lear’s wonderfully nonsensical world.
