Young Company performed ‘Sycamore Gap’ by Al Smith at Derby Theatre

Sunday 26th April 2026

Our Young Company had a fabulous day at Derby Theatre (our NT Connections Partner theatre) arriving early for a technical rehearsal, extra rehearsals, photos, a design workshop and chill out time / karaoke in the afternoon before having pasta with the other company for dinner and a warm up of all the performers in the auditorium lead by the National Theatre director.

We then watched a performance of ‘Ride or Die’ by a local school before 8.30pm when it was our Young Company’s time to perform on the main stage of one of our local professional theatres. The group performed brilliantly and with such great energy and commitment. We were very proud of them all. As a group, they have been an absolute pleasure to work with – full attendance almost every week, focused when they needed to be and having so much fun together at other times.

This script was particularly challenging because all the characters were on stage for the whole 50 minutes of the performance and needed to be focused and in character the whole time. The plot centred around 12 individual characters from a Year 11 Eco club in a school in Northumberland who had been kept in a room at the school while individually being questioned by the police about the felling of a well-known, tourist attraction and historical monument – the sycamore tree that formed part of Hadrian’s Wall. In addition to these 12 characters was a ‘Court of Public Opinion’ who represented a UK view about the tree being of national significance and a symbol of the UK, a national treasure. For our interpretation, we represented people from all walks of life with a clear national viewpoint and costumed them in blue, red and white (colours of the Union Jack) to enhance this, contrasted with the greens of the Eco club.

The cast and company were all brilliant and created a wonderful performance to which the National Theatre Director gave great praise. We had been working on the play one way or another since September and were really proud of our final performance at Derby Theatre.