Talking to Byron
Young people rarely get a good press, it seems. Either they are perpetrators of anti-social activity – writ larger than ever in current headlines around the country – or they are victims of it: specifically, victims of knife crime. As a way of helping young people to avoid such victimhood and take some responsibility for putting an end to the carrying of knives, the National Youth Theatre embarked in 2009 on an ongoing campaign to bring an awareness of the issues to the classroom. What made this project stand out for many from a welter of knife-crime related projects going into schools was, first, that it seemed an unlikely initiative from the most prestigious youth theatre company in the country. Many outsiders assume the NYT is simply about producing the next generation of Great Actors – it has, indeed, acquired quite a roster of names over the last half century including the two most recent Dr Who's. However, the NYT also has a long track record of working with young people in prison and has, in recent years, opened up access to young people without education, employment or training through its Playing Up programme.
Members of Playing Up were heavily involved not just in acting in Talking to Byron – the pilot project – but in helping Tanika Gupta to write the short play at the heart of it. This was the other key difference: rather than adults coming in to preach, this was about young people talking to other young people. This gave it realism and an exceptional emotional punch. Since the pilot there has been a further 'knife crime awareness' project in Birmingham and new developments on the way. In the process, the NYT, too, has radically changed – recognising that the division between 'mainstream' and 'educational' (or 'access') work is not only an artificial one but an obstacle to a more holistic approach to creating theatre with and for young people.
This extract from my report on the pilot project is published here for the first time by kind permission of the NYT; other than a few 'in-house' recommendations, this is the complete text of the evaluation of a highly successful initiative.
