"One Night Only"  A 40th Anniversary Celebration.

The Young Performers.

Duchess Theatre, Long Eaton.

Back in 1985 Barbara Moran and Tricia Freer who founded the Young Performers as a resident youth drama group at the Duchess Theatre. 40 years on the group are going stronger than ever and this celebratory concert shows that. Not only do we get to see many of the current group members, but we see the leaders, Young performers Alumni and even a few that we're not used to seeing on stage, but are well known faces in and around the theatre!!

The evening is compered by Richard Dawson, himself a former member of the group, Actor, Writer, Singer, Director, Erewash Sound Radio presenter and all round nice guy who is always "down with the kids". A smooth operator who makes the role of Master of Ceremonies look easy (thanks for the fiver Richard and I hope that I remembered everything that you told me to say!). What I also noted was Richard also managed to match his outfit for the evening with the colour of his glasses' frames. It's the little things that make the difference and I notice.

The evening started off with three witches around a cauldron reciting Shakespeare - you know which play I mean - but then I noticed a twist which fed in perfectly to the first big ensemble number where we got to see the cast for the first time with the ensemble number "One Night Only" from the musical "Dreamgirls".

The first solo act of the night came from Young performers Alumni, Harvey Leo, who performed an original composition.

There were ensemble numbers like ELO's "Mr Blue Sky", Doobie Brothers "Long Train Running", Lady Gaga's "Abracadabra", Katrina & the Waves' "Walking On Sunshine", mixed in with musical theatre songs like "One" from A Chorus Line, High School Musical's "We're All In This Together", "Seasons Of Love" from Rent, "When I Grow Up" from Matilda and also two emotional packed pieces to close both acts, "You Will Be Found" from Dear Evan Hansen and "This Is Me" from The Greatest Showman.

We had a gorgeous three way version of "Requiem" also from Dear Evan Hansen, a beautiful duet of "For Good" from Wicked, a brilliantly choreographed tap section (I tried tap dancing once, but fell in the sink) to Jessie J's "Bang Bang", as well as a few surprises of the non musical variety.

There was a four way rendition of Rudyard Kipling's poem "If", a large group number who performed a piece called "One Voice" and a comedy piece called "Big Deck" which raised more than a few laughs, as well as eyebrows, which was written by Jeff Foxworthy from Blue Collar TV, and was nothing to do with any of those two little Geordie fellows!

Ellie Simmonds, another Alumni member of Young Performers also sang a beautiful version of Carole King's "Will You Love Me Tomorrow".

And these were just a few of the performances we were treated to on the night from the following Young Performers....

Alex Povey, Alexa Lewis, Alexa Simpson, AJ Chamberlain, Amelia Forecast, Carly Gaunt, Clarissa Armitage, Daniel Swan, Daisy O'Connor, Dillan Brookes, Ella Charlesworth (your voice gets better and better), Elijah Green (always a pleasure to see this young man involved), Emily-Mae Taylor, Emily Wilkins, Emmie Simmons, Evie Perks, Evie Yates, Fin Tomlinson (another favourite performer of mine), Heidi Parsons, Imogen Scott, Izzy Pickering (so lovely to see you back on stage again),Jamie Higgins, Keely Rickerby, Lola Kitchen, Lottie Ellis, Lewis McDowall, Lexie-Mae Hart, Lucy Coulson-Jones, Livvy Read, Megan Shackleton, Mia Allen, Milly Hopkins, Millie Newbold, Mille Weston, Molly Price, Neve Johnson, Olivia Monk, Remy Read, Paige Bone, Sophie Longcroft, Violet Graney, Will Mellor, Avaani Babra, Ellie Simmonds (who battled with a sore throat but delivered gorgeous vocals none the less), Erin Hill, Fiona McDowall, Kevin McDowall, Lottie Ludlow, Harvey Leo, Richard Dawson, Roydon Charlesworth (we need to see more work on stage as opposed to stage work after tonight), Sarah Charlesworth (who sang, danced and performed and looked like she enjoyed everything she was given to do on stage), Tricia Freer and Victoria Byrne.

What a cast!

I know that everyone on stage enjoyed showing their talents, but there were a few times where I wish that they had shown just how much they were enjoying performing because there were a few serious faces, especially with the ensemble pieces. There were, however, many big smiles and bundles of energy on stage from the majority of the performers. I wish that I had half of that energy and 100% of their guts to get up on stage and do what everyone above did on Sunday night.

The Creative Team were Vicky Byrne, Lottie Ludlow, Patricia Freer, Sarah Charlesworth, Roydon Charlesworth, Fiona McDowall and Andy Cook.

The Junior Leaders were Ella Charlesworth, Lewis McDowall, Millie Weston and Olivia Michaud.

Richard Dawson also highlighted the work that is put in developing a young team of technical folk who are trained to operate the lighting, sound and other areas of producing a show. These tonight were Olivia Michaud, Lewis Cuthbert, Eva O'Riordan, Gizel Chaparova and Maddie Taft, and by the standard of light and sound operation, they're doing a grand job, thanks to their grand techie tutors.

A very successful night, quite rightly showing off the talents of these Young Performers past and present. Here's to the next 40 years.