The Beginnings of NYTC
In 1975 Thornbury Arts Festival committee members decided that it would be a good idea to include young people as a regular feature of the annual programme. This is how the Northavon School of Drama came into existence, with Jennifer Davies (a local teacher) as Principal.
In its early years the School was fairly small and was able to perform a programme of short plays, (such as its first show in 1976: ‘The Fantastic Mr Fox’ which Roald Dahl actually came to see!), using the facilities available at the Sheiling School in Thornbury. Gradually dance and music were added to the School’s curriculum and its productions became more ambitious. A musical adaptation of ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' based on the famous C S Lewis novel was the 1978 offering, with a successful version of ‘Toad of Toad Hall’ filling Thornbury’s Armstrong Hall in 1981. By this time Jennifer Davies had moved away and Linda Evans (a professionally trained actress and well-known local performer) had taken over as Principal. She decided that the School should become independent of the Arts Festival, putting on performances in its own right under the name of the Northavon Children’s Theatre Company. Therefore, after a highly successful production of ‘The Wizard of Oz’, all ties were cut and a new era began.
Lyn Bamford (a local teacher of
English and Drama and established performer) was
recruited to assist with productions, particularly helping with choreography,
and 1983 saw a highly acclaimed staging of Lionel Bart’s ‘Oliver!’. By
this time nearly fifty children were involved (including Lyn’s own four) and a
good reputation had become established.
An ambitious performance of ‘The King and I’ was followed by the fun musical: ‘Bugsy Malone’, but in 1986 Linda Evans decided to move on and Lyn became Principal of the School and Director for productions. Since then membership has swelled to around sixty young people at any time, with students receiving regular tuition in all aspects of stagecraft, including visits from professional actors, going on arranged trips to both amateur and professional productions, plus developing confidence and a range of useful ‘life’ skills. Shows presented include ‘Grease!, Anything Goes; ‘Blitz!; ‘Brigadoon’ and ‘Calamity Jane’, with a number of students going on to became professional singers, dancers and actors.
Lyn became Bedford in 1998 through remarriage, but is still ‘at the helm’, with a number of her original team of valued helpers plus some new faces providing wonderful support. As students ages now range from 11 to 18 years, Lyn changed the performance name to the Northavon Youth Theatre Company some years ago and this name has become synonymous with a very high standard of achievements. NYTC has now won eight prestigious awards for performance and technical achievement since the first success in 1991, including a Rose Bowl Award presented by Kate Adie to Michael Thompson for his outstanding performance as Billy Bigelow in NYTC’s first production of the new Millennium - Rodgers and Hammerstein’s ‘Carousel’.
In 2001 NYTC celebrated its 25th anniversary with a stunning production of ‘Give Our Regards to Broadway’ — a tribute to many of the great shows from the 20th and 21st centuries, including Miss Saigon’, ‘Barnum’, ‘South Pacific’, 'Les Misérables’, ‘Showboat; ‘The Rocky Horror Show; ‘West Side Story’ and ‘the Lion King’ to name just a few of the 35 musicals featured.
Since then, the company has gone from strength-to-strength. Rose Bowl awards in 2002 and 2004 were the preamble for a brilliant performance of 'Les Misérables' in 2005 which was nominated for 2 Rose Bowls - winning the "Best Youth Production" award and also achieved a "Regional Award for Excellence" from NODA.
Since then, both "Summer Holiday" (2006) and "Crazy for you" (2007) continued to maintain the standard, achieving nominations for "Best Youth Production".
For a history of NYTC's main productions please visit our "Previous Shows" section by clicking the button on the left.