National Youth Music Theatre in Concert – Rose Theatre, Kingston

National Youth Music Theatre in Concert at the Rose Theatre, Kingston-upon-Thames.

Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩

Young people with bundles of talent and loads of energy – don’t you just love ’em?! The opening salvo in NYMT’s 2022 season, subtitled A Musical Theatre Showcase, gave us two hours of quality and quantity at the Rose, 35 singers and dancers aged between 12 and 20 strutting their stuff like they’d been doing it all their lives, backed by a perfectly-drilled 20-strong orchestra, again predominately teenagers, and it all sounded glorious.

They gathered by the Thames from all over and beyond, two from Cork and one all the way from Australia, to serenade us with a wide selection of favourites and the less familiar from old and new musicals.

Kicking off most appropriately with Jason Robert Brown’s ‘Songs For a New World’, then a selection from musicals for young people, Seussical, Adrian Mole, Matilda and Tuck Everlasting, before changing direction to the great Stephen Sondheim for the joys of Into the Woods, ‘Not While I’m Around’ from Sweeney Todd with the whole company assembling for ‘Sunday’ from Sunday in the Park With George.

The end of Acts I and II focused on numbers from new musicals of past NYMT seasons, not so new now but still well worth hearing.

‘You’ll Always Have a Friend’ from Brass by Benjamin Till, commissioned to commemorate the Great War centenary in 2014, and ‘What We Get Up To’ from The Battle of Boat (Jenna Donnelly and Ethan Lewis Maltby), premiered at the Rose two years later, again to commemorate a First World War situation with an entire cast of children, were perfect for highlighting what the nurturing NYMT brings to the table.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Prodigy, Growl and Legend Trippers were other ‘new musicals’ ordered specifically to give opportunities to young performers. And since much of the Stiles and Drewe catalogue majors on animal stories such as Honk! and children’s classics like Peter Pan and The Wind in the Willows, five numbers from those gave full rein to young voices and performing skills.

One voice and personality which stood out in four Act II contributions from Honk! (‘Now That I’ve Seen You’ particularly sweet), Peter Pan and ‘Block Out The Noise’ from Prodigy, was that of Lasairfhiona de Brun, a 17-year-old Irish lass already a stage veteran as she was Annie at the Cork Opera House when she was 12. She also plays violin and guitar and writes songs in two languages. This confident young lady has the warmth of a young Jessie Buckley, who was born just 55 miles from her in Killarney.

Another to catch the eye was Ben Watts, an 18-year-old from Alresford with a big stage presence, whose ‘Teacher’s Pet’ from School of Rock went down particularly well.

His local Hampshire weekly hailed him as “a true star” for his Tony in a school production of West Side Story and they may well be right. Could he have a West End future to set alongside his West Side past?

It was a great idea to have him introduce each orchestra member by name after he had sung but a shame there wasn’t time to do the same for each cast member too.

We all like to spot stars of the future but as these 35 troupers mostly sang in groups of three, four or more, how could the audience know who was who? True, first names did appear under songs in the programme but which was which? There were no cast photos in the programme to guide us.

More solos and duets would have simplified the identification problem. I can say though that a terrific song about growing up from the Eamonn O’Dwyer/Helen Watts songwriting team was delightfully sung and acted by Isla Linsdell and Elle Lytton.

The standard was incredibly high and others performed to a similar level. Less successful were the dance routines which sometimes seemed a little disorganised and could have been sharper. Even so, to get so many bodies on to one stage without the odd hiccup was asking a lot, so full credit to the all-star NYMT team – especially director Chris Cuming and MD Tom Slade – for pulling it off.

Now it’s all systems go with Chess at Leicester Curve, the next stop from 10-13 August, with a new musical A Kiss For Cinderella, in Dulwich the following week and a great old one, Ragtime, at the same Michael Croft Theatre at Alleyn’s the week after that. A hectic and thrilling August indeed.

Jeremy Chapman