Drama festival that nurtures theatre stars of the future

IT'S two in the morning and there are no signs of anyone flagging.

If anything, 2am appears to be the point at which everyone gets their second wind. And it's not as though this is the beginning of the week – this is Thursday night – or very early Friday morning to be more accurate – at the National Student Drama Festival.

I'm in NOFF, the Noises Off office at NSDF, the hub from which the daily newspaper is printed during the annual week-long drama festival, held in Scarborough since 1990.

It's impossible not to get carried along by the sheer energy on display. Phil Mann is the far-too-lively editor of Noises Off and leads the whole room in a rendition of the "copy deadline" song, which appears to be a tradition.

Mann has stepped into the breach after the usual Noises Off editor, Andrew Haydon, was laid low with an injury.

As a seasoned journalist I'm tempted to offer my services to the Noises Off team, but remember I have a workshop at 9am with Stephen Jeffreys and about ten years on the young people around me and think better of it.

I'm put to shame as I'm about to leave for my bed when I spot Mark Ravenhill, the famous playwright of Shopping and F***ing. If I've got 10 years on most of the students around me, he's got ten years on me, and he's showing no signs of needing his bed.

"To be fair, I only arrived yesterday; I'm doing about 48 hours this year, so for me it's a sprint not a marathon," says Ravenhill, playing down his impressive staying power.

But it is still two in the morning.

"As well as giving workshops and seeing the shows, I'm a board member and so last year I was involved in the funding discussions and that did affect last year's festival.

"But being here this year, the atmosphere is great, it's particularly lively and it's always great to come to the Hub at the end of the night and see everyone."

Back in December 2007, Arts Council Yorkshire announced its funding cuts. Many companies and organisations received bad news that Christmas and those involved with NSDF were among the unlucky ones.

The NSDF and its board members rallied. The list of alumni of the festival reads like a Who's Who of theatre. Simon Russell Beale, Brian Blessed, Michael Boyd, Caryl Churchill, Adrian Edmondson, Ben Elton, Richard Eyre, Stephen Fry, Meera Syal, Kay Mellor and Pete Postlethwaite all had their first taste of stage success at the festival.

With such high-profile friends, the festival was saved, but it took until Autumn last year for the NSDF to prove its worth and receive a guarantee of funding from the Arts Council.

Holly Kendrick, festival director, says: "It took quite a long time and Arts Council Yorkshire was quite clear about what it expected

from us.

"The problem is that terms are now different to what they used to be. The term 'student' and 'festival' perhaps give quite an inaccurate idea of what the festival actually is and what it does. Really we are a festival of work presented by emerging theatre artists."

Being at the festival is quite an extraordinary experience. Hundreds of students descend on the seaside town for the week to star in and see 12 shows and take part in dozens of workshops with seasoned professionals.

This year, students were able to take part in workshops led by Mark Ravenhill, but also masterclasses with Christopher Eccleston, Mike Leigh, Associate Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company John Caird, Alan Lane and theatre company Punchdrunk.

During a short stint at the festival, I took part in workshops led by Bradford theatre and television director Dominic Leclerc who taught students about television acting, and Stephen Jeffreys, the writer of the Johnny Depp movie, The Libertine, and the play on which it was based, who taught students about writing for the stage.

Leclerc directed Monkey at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in 2008 and has directed two films funded by Screen Yorkshire in the last year. He has recently moved into directing for television.

His workshop was based around a script of Shameless which he directed for Channel 4.

The students acted out one of the scenes, with one of the group directing, and then they watched the scene as Leclerc shot it.

He says: "When I was at Warwick University, I brought three shows here to the NSDF and that platform gave me the vote of confidence to know I was a director.

"From there I went on to be an assistant at the National Theatre so it was absolutely thanks to this festival that I was brought into the professional world of theatre.

"The great thing about the festival is that the students and the professionals all come together on an absolutely equal footing and learn from each other. I've seen some fantastically talented directors and some very exciting actors.

"Bringing us together like this means that I can meet actors and performers and be in a very real position to maybe offer them professional work as actors."

It's not just the workshops and the shows, however. Every morning there is a session held in the Stephen Joseph Theatre, where the students come together to discuss the shows they have seen, with the cast and creative team on stage.

It is not a place for "luvvies" slapping each other on the back. This feedback session is honest, helpful, and sometimes brutal.

Ravenhill, speaking at a more normal hour of the day, following one of these sessions, says: "That is one of the most important parts of the festival. It's great that the students can take part in the workshops, but this kind of peer review is invaluable – and it's a chance for them to make relationships here which they will continue into their professional lives – that certainly happened to me when I came here."

Stephen Jeffreys is also a board member, although when we chat after his workshop on writing for the theatre, he reveals that he will be stepping down from the board, announcing his decision at the awards event that evening.

Like Ravenhill, his first involvement with the festival came as a student: in 1977 his play, Like Dolls or Angels, won the Playwriting Award at the festival.

"It was my first success as a playwright. But I feel like it's time to step aside while people remember who I am," says Jeffreys.

He wouldn't have left, he says, in the last few years with the funding crisis, but feels it is in a safe position to carry on without him.

"Within the profession, it is a very important festival, because so many people have emerged from it. I remember one year when both Stephen Fry and Adrian Edmondson were both in shows, then another year Meera Syal and Simon Russell Beale were in the same festival.

"In the profession, it's a little like a masonic group, you know the other people who have come up through the festival and are now working in the industry.

"This year's big hit play, Enron, is a really good example of that. Tim Piggot-Smith, who was here over four decades ago, stars in it and it was written by Lucy Prebble, who came through the festival in 2002, so it shows how it continues to influence theatre today over many generations."

Being in the middle of the festival, it is easy to see why the benefits of hundreds of students descending on Scarborough for a week once a year might not be immediately obvious. But it is the ripples that spread each time the stone is dropped in the pond that can be clearly seen in theatres across the country.

What does it mean to those taking part? That's best summed up by another Stephen Jeffreys anecdote.

"I was talking to Tim Piggot-Smith just a few weeks ago about the festival and he said: 'I still think we should have won the award the year I was here in a show.'

"I said: 'It was 45 years ago.'

"He said: 'We still should have won.'"

For a special audio report from the NSDF, log on to listen to or download the Yorkshire Post's arts podcast at www.yorkshire

post.co.uk/podcasts

Big days in drama festival history

The National Student Drama Festival was founded in 1956 by Sunday Times arts columnist Kenneth Pearson, the Sunday Times theatre critic, Harold Hobson, and NUS president Frank Copplestone.

1956: Timothy West directed Our Town, winning the Sunday Times Drama Trophy.

1970: Michael Attenborough, now artistic director of the Almeida, performed in The Stronghold.

1975: Michael Boyd, artistic director of the RSC, in 1975, performed and directed his play, God, Herbert, Donne and the Devil, the recipient of the Kevin Laffan Mystery Award.

1977: Roger Michell directed Bingo and Krapp's Last Tape, recipient of the Buzz Goodbody Award. Stephen Jeffreys won the playwriting award for Like Dolls or Angels.

1983: Doon Mackichan, actor and comedy writer of Smack the Pony and The Day Today, performed in Troilus and Cressida.

1984: Tim Supple, former artistic director of the Young Vic, directed The Merry Wives of Windsor. Polly Teale, now a playwright and director, won the Sunday Times Playwriting Award for Growing Pains.

1988: Mark Gatiss, of The League of Gentlemen, performed/devised Damage Your Children.

1990: Festival moved to Scarborough, where it has been based since.

This year's winners

Sunday Times Playwriting Award: Sarah Davies, University of Hull (Tell Tale)

Directors' Guild Award: Ashley Scott Layton, University of Leeds (Phaedre's Love)

Buzz Goodbody Student Director's Award: Sarah Davies, University of Hull (Tell Tale)

Cameron Mackintosh Music Award: Warwick University (By The Bog Of Cats)

Spotlight Award for most promising actor: Rupert Lazarus, University of Leeds (Phaedre's Love)

Spotlight Award for most promising actress: Rachel Helen Shaw, University of Leeds (Phaedre's Love)

Sunday Times Harold Hobson Student Drama Critic Award: Dan Hutton, Cedars Upper School

Student Playscript Competition: Richard Watson, University of Hull

Judges' award for Artistic Leadership: Miranda Cromwell, Bristol Old Vic Young Company (Our Country's Good)

Judges' Award for ensemble: Bristol Old Vic Young Company (Our Country's Good)

Judges' Award for devised theatre: Dartington College of Arts (4 Bar And Rising)

Judges' Award for Theatrical Innovation: Hull University (Tell Tale)

Judges' Award for Dance: Christian Asare, Ealing, Hammersmith and West London College (In Loving Memory)

Judges' commendation for comedy: Joe von Malachowski, University of Manchester

Judges' commendation for acting: Rio West, University of Warwick (By The Bog Of Cats)