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Big Spirit News

Our thriving Youth Theatre is now well into rehearsals for “Brenda Bly – Teen Detective” which has its first night on Wednesday 29th November. It’s an all-American 50’s High School jape reminiscent of that other tongue-in-cheek screwball comedy “Daisy Pulls it Off”. It’s full of good catchy songs (16 of ‘em!) and is very suitable for family audiences so now is the time to get booking. The cast includes some old Big Spirit faves such as Peter Hobday as the bumbling school security officer, Cecil Sesille; Becky Lee as the monstrous headmistress, Van Strander, Dan Tiplady as the beefcake hero, Jake Mann as his scaredy-cat sidekick with Amy Bellwood as the eponymous heroine, Brenda Bly. Lots of other familiar faces and some new ones too as this is the first outing for at least 10 of the cast. Yes sirree, it’s sure to be an all singing, all dancing extravaganza – so make sure you’re there and part of the party!

It’s a funny thing – talent. People have a surprising amount of it, I always find. For instance, when I first met Becky Lee (she was in a dance show that I attended to watch Andreya Lynham and Carlyss Peer), I was struck by what an excellent dancer she was. She subsequently joined Big Spirit but it was not until some two shows later that her parents happened to mention to me at the bar that she could sing – Becky had never said a thing! In fact she has a fantastically strong singing voice and had starred in a number of musicals before coming to the QMT – talk about modest! I was thinking about hidden talents this week because another member of the youth theatre made both Tim and I gasp this week. Tim was late and I asked if anyone could play the piano so Katie could set a dance. Alex, a new Big Spirit member, steps forward and says quietly ‘I play a bit’. He sits down at the keyboard and proceeds to read the score perfectly, twiddly bits an’ all. Tim arrives a bit later and soon rushes out to tell me that Alex is ‘fantastic’ and that he’s well known in musical circles as a classical pianist. In fact he wants him to take over the keyboards! That’s probably not going to happen by the way – Alex has come along to Big Spirit to learn about acting but – that’s what I mean – there’s lots of talent about. I just wish I had some of it!

Finally – at Big Spirit we love our projects and two more are in the pipeline. The first is a series of Sunday Specials in which the youth theatre take on a new artistic project at 10am on a Sunday and give a performance that same evening. You can do a surprising amount of good work in nine hours and I think you’ll be stunned by the results. Young actors love the buzz of working to such a tight schedule. Each Sunday Special will be run by a different director and be a performance art piece. There are three dates throughout the year so watch this space – and all performances are dirt-cheap at £2. The second project is a book to be authored entirely by past and present youth theatre members about acting, theatrecraft and generally running a successful youth theatre. From the youngest 13-year old in the current group to the oldest ex-member (and I think that’s Jules Newman Turner who joined aged 16 in 1984), they will all have something to contribute. The book is to be part of a greater project to raise awareness about the benefits of theatre activities for young people with a view to greatly increasing the number of youth theatres around the country.