Generosity...

The last weekend of June saw the Yew Tree Youth Theatre host their second Shakespeare festival at the wonderful Clarke Hall a small stately home in Wakefield. With over 80 performers aged between 6 and 24, performing extracts from over 10 Shakespearean plays the preparation to ensure the events success was significant. In addition there was a high degree of gambling going on as we were utterly dependent on the weather…rain would have been disastrous.

In actuality we were compromised not by inclemency as there was glorious sunshine for the entire weekend but instead by the World Cup as the England Germany match meant we had to finish early…still everything else about the weekend was idyllic...

Now anyone who knows me will know that I am consistently proud of my youth theatre and the artists that work with them…we have built a community and culture based on the values of creativity, care and development and the results of being able to enjoy this culture for are significant. During the Shakespeare festival however this pride reached new peaks and this and all the other positive things I’ve said about the weekend can be attributed to the generosity that flowed in abundance throughout the whole event.

From the people who maintain Clarke Hall both paid and as volunteers allowing us free reign in their beautiful grounds and house, fitting us out with costumes and giving up their time…to the young people who in blistering heat and unfamiliar surroundings invested all of themselves in their performance. There was generosity everywhere in the parents that spent their weekend supporting their children…in the comments and compliments of the 200 strong audience, in the desire everyone had to help, to make things easier…nothing was too much trouble…for anyone…

And the result of this generosity…a complete revel in true Elizabethan style…artistically the gorgeous setting and costumes created an atmosphere conducive to delightful performances…but there was a deeper layer of reveling to be experienced. The weekend witnessed retired people reveling in their enjoyment of the work and world of young people, young people reveling in the experience of all things historical. Preconceptions were set aside and an openness took its place. All of the clichés about the universality of Shakespeare were proved to be true as his work provided a bridge between people of all ages, experience and walks of life.

Now here’s the final bit of magic because in those kind of interactions, the generous, reveling, open kind…there’s all kinds of learning to be done…learning that happens without people really being aware of it…whether it was about themselves, people they knew, strangers, Shakespeare or theatre, everyone went away having learnt something, everyone left just that little bit richer…

What a joyous way to spend a weekend…

"O wonderful, wonderful, and most wonderful wonderful! and yet again wonderful, and after that, out of all whooping!"