In good company at the theatre (From The Northern Echo)

In good company at the theatre

10:37am Friday 19th November 2010 in Ray Mallon

MAYBE like me you’ve shaken your head and laughed when you’ve heard of someone who has watched the Sound of Music or Phantom of the Opera a thousand times or more.

Well, not any more. On Wednesday, I went to see a play. It was nothing like those lavish, all-star spectaculars.

It was raw and uncompromising. Its content and dialogue were, to use that coy newspaper phrase not for “the easily offended”. It was produced and performed by young people who a few months ago would never have dreamed of standing in front of an audience.

It was so good I am going again tonight.

The play is Iron and it is the first production by Company TSU, Middlesbrough’s new theatre company.

Company TSU has been working with the Fairbridge organisation that does so much excellent outreach work with young people. The project aims to motivate them and give them the self-confidence and skills to help them fulfil their talents. Company TSU has been two years in the making and is part of Middlesbrough’s youth agenda.

By coincidence, Steve Chisholm, a friend, had persuaded me to see a production by Hull Truck Theatre Company. I hadn’t been keen, but the play opened my eyes. I thought it would be good if Teesside had something similar producing high quality, grassroots, accessible drama, and engaging with young people who hadn’t had the best of starts.

I wanted to see if the theatre could open their eyes and imagination like it had for me.

About the same time the council’s culture and tourism section was setting up TS1, a project getting young people into arts apprenticeships, working alongside professional artists and running a shop where they could sell their works.

We worked alongside Fairbridge, using its links with young people and professional actors, like Mark Lloyd, Stephen Lamb and Kat Downing to create Company TSU.

Wednesday was their big night and they did not disappoint. Iron is an adaptation of the 1978 play Class Enemy written by Nigel Williams. It is set in a vandalised classroom where half a dozen angry, disaffected students wait for a teacher who never turns up.

For an hour or more at Venue 2 at Middlesbrough College I felt I was in that classroom.

I felt as if each member of the cast – Becky McMahon, Sophie Black, Sarah Rooney, Eddie Wilkins, Chris Beckwith and Stephen Yann Tillman – was doing more than acting.

They were using their knowledge of the world they, and countless other young people, live in to make these characters real. Their performances were an inspiration.

The partner of inspiration, as every artist knows, of course, is perspiration.

These young people have lots of natural talent.

But they couldn’t have put on this play without knuckling down to months of hard graft, learning lines, rehearsing, supporting each other and working as a team.

I am sure it hasn’t been easy. But instant fame fades faster than the audience’s applause.

What they’ve achieved is far more lasting.

I hope they go on to more success and a career in the creative arts. But whatever path they choose, what they’ve learned in the past few months will be a great education for life.

I want to see Company TSU give more young people this kind of chance, this kind of inspiration for years to come.

You can contact Company TSU via tsu@inbox.com The company also has its own Facebook page.