The show will go on for Wellingborough youth theatre

Lockdown was never going to stop these budding thespians from putting on their end of term show.

Theatres across the UK were forced to close due to coronavirus, and GLJ Theatre was no different with its sessions in Wellingborough and Earls Barton coming to an abrupt end just two weeks before the end of term shows.

While it was upsetting for theatre members, who are aged four to 18, all was not lost.

Artistic director Gary L Johnson said: "After the schools closed myself and Laura Johnson (my wife and assistant director of the theatre company) delivered monologues and activities to each members homes.

"This gave us another idea.

"We asked our members to sign up for a brand new cyber show.

"We’ve never done anything like this before but we wanted to keep the magic of theatre alive and make a brand new show with all the children.

"The problem we had of course was we were all locked in our own homes and so communication had to go between parents and our members through emails.

"After finding out who wanted to take part (almost all our members) I wrote a brand new script about a Granny going onto the internet for the first time."

Granny on the Interweb sees Granny ending up talking to a friend online and before Granny knows it she’s invited the whole of GLJ Theatre to the chat.

After Granny causes some problems and tries to get her head around 'the surfing interweb' she understands the young people are bored just stuck at home so suggests an online play via webcam and it goes from there.

Gary said: "All our members were sent the script and were then given a little bit of the concept and asked to put their GLJ Theatre skills into practice and film themselves at home performing the lines.

"We then had all the clips returned to us where we edited them together."

The show had its premiere on April 13 and had a great response.

Gary said: "The feedback we’ve had is amazing, with some asking when is the next one.

"Our company is linked in with Glamis Hall Community Centre in Wellingborough and the Earls Barton Methodist Church, two local communities trying to help the elderly but we wanted to do something that the children could enjoy at home."

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