Nick Ahad: That optimistic time of year – and there's plenty to celebrate

There are other reasons for my annually recurring good cheer. It was this time last year in this column that I was enthusing about the young writers in the county, having spent a couple of days at an emerging writers' event at Huddersfield University. This column will be dedicated to a similar theme, given that I have just returned from the National Student Drama Festival (NSDF).

There is a stereotype of theatre critics and I don't really fit it. Nicholas Hytner, artistic director of the National Theatre, complained last year that the country's theatre critics are predominantly white, middle-class, middle-aged males.

What he actually said was: "I think it's fair enough to say that too many of the theatre critics are dead white men," but the qualities listed above were what he was really getting at, he later clarified.

Although the Yorkshire Post's theatre critic and definitely male, I am not middle-aged (although closer to it than I am willing to accept), I am half Asian and I hail from Keighley, which is not a middle-class town.

There's another stereotype that I don't really fit. A little while ago I was asked if, having seen around 1,000 plays in 10 years, I was suffering from burn-out. The questioner believed theatre critics were bad-tempered (guilty as charged), cynical and never happier than when sticking the knife into a production (not me, your honour).

I laughed and replied that, if anything, my passion for theatre increases with every piece of work I see, good or bad. It did make me wonder, though, if it was possible that one day I would ever fall out of love with theatre.

Last week, two days at the NSDF was more than enough to confirm that if I am to grow tired of theatre, that day remains a long way off.

A couple of years ago, the NSDF faced losing its funding from Arts Council Yorkshire. I reported on the subject at the time, but in truth I wasn't entirely convinced that the festival needed public cash: a bunch of rich kids from drama schools messing around by the seaside for a week – why should our taxes be stumping up money for that?

But after attending the festival, it is so clear that NSDF more than earns its funding. I saw some of the most daring and inventive theatre work I have seen all year, but that is actually one of the least important reasons that we should continue to celebrate it – and be particularly grateful that we get to host it in Yorkshire.

The performances were a small part of the week. The technical skills, the workshops, the energy about the place – they are all now going to feed in to an on-going theatre ecology which will ensure that we will continue to see the best work imaginable at theatres around the country.

With that to celebrate, the cricket season a weekend away, and the sun making an appearance, I'm starting to enjoy my annual boost of optimism.