Theatre News

National Youth Theatre announces 2017 season

The season includes a re-staging of the company’s first ever commission

The Reluctant Fundamentalist
The Reluctant Fundamentalist
© Helen Murray 2016

The National Youth Theatre has announced its 2017 season, which includes new plays and a re-staging of the company's first ever commission.

Zigger Zagger by Peter Terson opened 50 years ago, and looks at football hooliganism. Juliet Knight directs a cast of 50 at Wilton's Music Hall from 6 to 9 September.

The company's West End season will run at the Ambassadors Theatre from 26 September to 8 October. It includes a new version of Robert Louis Stevenson's Jekyll and Hyde by Evan Placey, directed by Roy Alexander Weise, who won last year's JMK Award. Frantic Assembly’s Othello, which sets Shakespeare's thriller in 21st century Britain, will be directed by Simon Pittman, artistic director of Frantic.

There will also be an East End season at the Yard Theatre from 8 to 26 August. It features a stage adaptation of Mohsin Hamid’s Man Booker Prize shortlisted novel The Reluctant Fundamentalist. The play, which was made into a Hollywood film starring Riz Ahmed and Kate Hudson, will be staged by the company again. Alice Knight directs a brand new production of Jessica Swale's play Blue Stockings, which received its world premiere at the Globe in 2013. The NYT has also commissioned its most recent play, Nessah Muthy's The Host, which tells the story of Riam, a Syrian refugee on a south east London council estate.

Sophie Ellerby's Three will play at the Arcola from 20 to 22 July. The play will star social inclusion participants as part of the NYT's Playing Up course, which is exclusively for 18 to 24 year-olds not in full-time education or employment. The new play follows three sisters, and will be directed by Anna Niland.

The NYT has also announced that James Bond producer Barbara Broccoli will succeed Lord Waheed Alli as president of the National Youth Theatre. She said: "I’m delighted to be working with the National Youth Theatre in developing and celebrating the most talented and diverse young people that the UK has to offer."