Seeing as our beloved building is now closed for redevelopment, I’m sure you’re all wondering whether we’re just sat here twiddling our thumbs... I can assure you that certainly isn’t the case!

Our brilliant teams here are hard at work preparing for Mercury at Abbey Field and, of course, planning for our grand reopening next year.

One team in particular who haven’t felt the full effects of the building closure are our creative learning and talent team.

For them, the summer term has been business as usual as they take our work out into the community and run weekly youth theatre sessions over at the Abbey Field Centre (formerly the old Garrison Gym).

This month I caught up with our creative practitioner, Fabiana Sforza, who has been telling me all about the brilliant youth theatre sharings that have taken place this week for member’s friends and families.

I learnt that the five to sevens Youth Theatre have explored Dr Seuss’s poem One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish which celebrates how everyone is different and beautiful in their own way, while the eight to tens group picked their favourite moments from the summer term and performed these in a super-quick rewind that saw them share their favourite exercises and games. Our two 11 to 13s groups took very different directions, with the Monday group transporting the audience into the inner workings of an adolescent brain by presenting a sharing inspired by Ned Glasier’s Brainstorm and the Tuesday group sharing their adaptation of the Jabberwocky (Lewis Carroll) that saw them engage with lots of imaginary characters in a strange land.

Our 14 to 16s Youth Theatre have been working on different devised performances. They shared a range of monologues, duologues and movement pieces with their families.

The 16 to 18s Youth Theatre welcomed their audiences to their very own variety night in aid of Mercury Rising, Live@Abbey Field – think Live at the Apollo and then throw in a bit of theatre.

They shared stand-up comedy, Shakespearean duologues, songs, monologues, improvisation games and so much more.

Our Aspire, Share, Create Youth Theatre for young people with additional needs have spent the term adapting and working through scripts and shared their piece based on Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time.

Fabiana explained all the young people involved have really been pushing themselves this term and the sharing events were a magical experience for all involved.

Our Youth Theatre provides a safe, fun space for aspiring performers to explore and develop their craft.

Working with professional practitioners, they are guided through specialised drama games and exercises to promote teamwork, concentration and communication.

If anyone you know would be interested in joining our Youth Theatre groups, general sale for new attendees opened on Thursday, July 18.

You can book at mercurytheatre.co.uk or by phoning Mercury Tickets on 01206 573948.