I joined Central Youth Theatre in Year 5. It was definitely the cleverest thing I did in Year 5 (apart from a cracking poster about the wives of Henry VIII which is still one of my proudest achievements), and it was also definitely one of the best choices I have ever made.
With CYT I have played big parts and small parts – a teacher, a doctor, a butler, a mother, a French child, a deaf old lady, a Southern cowgirl and a variety of servants. My friends played tribal children, army officers, scientists, newsreaders, time-travelling monkeys – the list goes on. Of course, we were just playing characters, but quite simply, the confidence, self-belief and top-notch team-working skills that CYT gave us genuinely prepared us for being anything that we wanted to be [maybe not time-travelling monkeys but still…]
I’m really proud to be working in theatre and TV (this year I became Production Coordinator on The One Show and my theatre company is taking two shows to the Pleasance at the Edinburgh Fringe this year). I know that without CYT, there is no way that I would have even attempted to pursue a career in arts and media. Just like hundreds of others who came before me, CYT helped me to believe in myself. But perhaps the most valuable lesson that CYT taught me is that you have to be tenacious.
CYT’s tenacity and resourcefulness is a big inspiration, but even so – it is mindboggling to me that thirty years on, CYT still has to struggle to survive. Surely we have proved ourselves enough to funders and to MPs and to councils. Surely it’s obvious: investing in CYT is investing in the next generation of Wolverhampton. How are young people expected to believe that they have something to offer if they’ve never been given the chance?
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