North-East young male dancers are a-buzz with Matthew Bourne’s latest project, says Steve Pratt

STEPPING out on stage at Newcastle Theatre Royal this week, 17-year-old Andrew Ashton isn't facing his biggest audience. He’s already played Mr Mistoffelees in Cats in front of 12,000 people at Birmingham Arena in a show celebrating the 25th anniversary of both Stagecoach drama schools and the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical.

The audience may be smaller, but appearing with 15 other young North-East dancers in a staging of William Golding’s book Lord Of The Flies for Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures company is a big deal.

He and the other dancers, aged from ten to 20, were chosen from 300 hopefuls through a project teaming the Theatre Royal and Dance City in Newcastle in partnership with New Adventures and Re:Bourne. They’ll join professional dancers and production team for a large-scale dance spectacular choreographed by Olivier-nominated Scott Ambler, adapted and directed by Matthew Bourne and Ambler from Golding’s classic novel.

The action is transferred from a deserted island to a deserted theatre where a group of schoolboys find themselves abandoned. Free of adults, they make their own rules and create their own civilisation before order breaks down. The local dancers and the professionals rehearsed at Heaton Manor school before yesterday's opening at the Theatre Royal.

Andrew, from Guisborough, has been dancing since he was four. “When I was younger, my parents let me and my brother do any course we wanted to. So I did rugby, running, swimming, horse riding, dancing, acting, singing – and it turned out I liked singing and my brother liked rugby,” he explains.

Dancing at Stagecoach led to ballet lessons, then tap and jazz. He’s now an assistant dance teacher at the Red Shoes School of Dancing in Stokesley and is taking his teacher’s exams in ballet. At Prior Pursglove College in Guisborough he’s studying physics, maths and fine arts with the aim of doing architecture at university if he doesn’t go to drama school. “People have been saying it’s quite weird, but I’m an arty and scientific person. I like both,” he says. “I’m constantly dancing. My favourite style is contemporary ballet, which is what this show is. It’s fun.

You get to express yourself, it keeps you physically fit and is good for your brain. I like to learn.”

He likes this all-male company. “I used to go to an all-boys dance class in Darlington and think – not to be offensive to girls – that boys get on better together than girls do. We all gelled together really quickly,” he says.

Now 13, Ciaran Oakley, from Stockton, was five when he began dance classes after a friend asked if he wanted to go with her. In the end she left and he stayed. He was in the Royal Ballet School for 18 months. He’s appeared in Darlington Operatic Society shows Beauty And The Beast and Titanic at the Civic Theatre.

Lord Of The Flies is fun, says the Egglescliffe School performing arts student.

“We’re on stage most of the time so we can get the best out of it. We’re being given freedom to jump around, play around and have fun on the scaffolding on the set. You’re playing a character and having fun at the same time,” he says.

He’s also taking part in a CAT (Centre for Advanced Training) programme for contemporary ballet, as is another member of the company Carl Hughes, 15, who’s from Northallerton. He discovered the Lord Of The Flies auditions on Facebook.

“I’ve been dancing since I was little. My sister used to do dancing and I joined in with her. They picked me and said, ‘Do you want to do competitive freestyle?’ That was with Planet Dance in Northallerton,” he says. “At the same time as the Lord Of The Flies I got an audition for a CAT course at Dance City, in Newcastle, and got into that as well.”

Like the other boys, he’s been allotted a name for the show and allowed to develop his character himself. He’s Walter, aka Wally.

“He’s a schoolboy from a posh background with his hair greased down and combed over.

Not like me at all,” says CRl, who plans to audition for one of the London dance schools next year.

“With Lord Of The Flies it’s really good to meet loads of new people and working with the professionals gives you a bigger responsibility. We can see if we match their standard.”

Middlesbrough dancer Marcel Li-Ping followed his brother and sister to dance classes. Now the 13-year-old says he’s dancing every day “straight after school until ten o’clock at night”. He does hip-hop, jazz, contemporary, ballet, tap, modern and house, just for starters.

His aim is to appear on the West End stage as a triple threat – actor, singer and dancer. “I want to go to college and stage school, then audition for jobs,” he says. Like most of the boys he hasn’t previously performed on the Theatre Royal stage, although he did see his brother there in the musical Sister Act a few years ago.

The other local boys performing in Lord of the Flies are: Ruben Copley, 11, from Northumberland; Joe Derbyshire, 13; Finlay Murray, ten and Sam Carruthers, 13, all from Newcastle; Amonik Melaco, 13, from Monkseaton; Louis Swanepoel, 12, from Jesmond; Jack Hindmarch, 13, from Washington; Nathan Denton, 13, from South Shields; Andrew Davison, 17, from Seahouses; Robin Larkin, 17, from Gateshead; John Hansford, 19, from Peterlee and Joseph Wright, 20, from Sunderland.

Lord Of The Flies: Newcastle Theatre Royal, Wednesday November 5 to Saturday November 8. Box Office: 08448- 112121 and theatreroyal.co.uk