The Connections Festival has been the National Theatre’s annual showcase of youth theatre for 31 years. This year, it will be staged outside of London for the first time, at the Lowry Theatre in Salford. Eight groups of performers from across the UK, each paired with a writer, are performing eight different plays across four days, with one performance at 7pm and one at 8:30 each night. Applications for next year’s Connections are open for schools, voluntary groups, and youth theatres until the end of the month, prioritising those from state schools and youth theatre groups and with various bursaries available.
This year, the festival begins on Thursday 25th June with Kirsty Housley’s ‘Macbeth Macbeth Macbeth Macbeth Macbeth’, performed by Cockburn John Charles Academy, representing Leeds. The play explores anxiety over GCSEs and what happens when an alarm is deliberately set off during a Drama exam, as well as climate change and the cost of living. The second performance of the night, and the festival, is Al Smith’s ‘Sycamore Gap’, performed by Bath’s The Young Egg Company continuing the examinations of climate change and anxiety, again set in a school, but branching out into police brutality, cancer, and porn addiction.
On Friday 26th, the first show is Pendleton School of Theatre’s performance of ‘Wildfire Road’ by Eve Leigh, representing Salford. ‘Wildfire Road’ looks at a global wildfire, and a plane from London to Tokyo with 416 passengers that gets hijacked. It’s followed by ‘Cloud Busting’, Helen Blakeman’s adaptation of the Malorie Blackman novel, performed by Cardiff High School and looking at bullying, anxiety, and poverty.
‘Fishville’, by Afsaneh Gray, will be performed on the 27th by Westacre Theatre Company, from King’s Lynn. Exploring radicalisation and conspiracy theories, this piece is about a coastal town where a severed foot is found shortly after the death of a young man which throws the local community into chaos. That is followed by ‘Britney’s Lock’, by Alexandra Wood and performed by Dumfries’ Guild of Players Youth Theatre, about a young girl who uses Britney Spears’ hair to stay calm during her GCSE mocks.
The penultimate performance of the festival is Sean Buckley’s ‘The Animals’, performed by Wyke College from Hull. Sam, a student teacher, introduces the residents of Redhill Youth Custody Secure Unit to philosophy, but brings only a fragile hope, especially for Gee, who is about to be released. And finally, in ‘Ride or Die’ by Florence Espeut-Nickless, ‘Jigsaw Arts Balham (London), a debate about Alton Towers and Thorpe Park comes down to the deciding vote of Angel, a child in Year 7 who hasn’t been to either.
All performances during the festival are captioned, and there is a £2 discount for people seeing two shows on the same night, as long as they’re booked at the same time. The clear thematic throughlines of- for example- exam stress, anxiety, and climate change highlight the importance of representation and of giving a voice to these young performers, especially with the apparent eye towards accessibility and inclusivity. It’s great that Connections has finally left London and come to Salford.
The NT Connections Festival runs at the Lowry Theatre 25th-28th June. Tickets here.