Founded in 1976 by Jeremy James Taylor, the National Youth Music Theatre’s beginnings were at Belmont, the Mill Hill junior school. Here, under Jeremy’s direction and inspired by Ben Jonson’s moving epitaph on an actor who died very young, an 11-13 cast created The Ballad of Salomon Pavey.
Following its school performance, an adventurous and enlightened headmaster allowed his ambitious director to take the whole thing to the Edinburgh Fringe where it won fine reviews, excellent audiences, a Fringe First Award and an invitation to bring it to London as part of Her Majesty’s Silver Jubilee Celebrations. The visit by a school company also started the trend for schools and youth groups to take shows to the Edinburgh Fringe - a development which has grown to mammoth proportions over the years.
The company quickly became The Children’s Music Theatre, using young performers auditioned and selected from schools throughout the UK, creating a centre of excellence with many new productions, rave reviews, awards and plaudits, which meant a high profile in the arts. With this profile, which by now included invitations to perform at The National Theatre and to create new music theatre works for the BBC and Granada Television, came the opportunity to inspire and educate young people through preparing for and presenting performance at the highest level. The NYMT was, as always, rich in all but funds and moved from strength to strength.
In 1985 there was a change of name and, in the same year, the first residential workshops took place, producing strong casts for summer productions. In 1984 Frank Dunlop, the new Artistic Director of the Edinburgh International Festival, invited the company to present an opera on the Festival programme. Such was the success of this that, in 1986, he presented two more NYMT productions, which raised the profile of the company to new heights. Then, in 1987, Richard Stilgoe offered NYMT the opportunity to première his new musical, Bodywork and, as a result, Edinburgh 1987 was, in Jeremy’s words, “crazy, hilarious and fantastical”. Huge audiences and rave reviews were followed by a Royal Gala Performance with HRH The Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex and Forfar (now Duke of Edinburgh) in the audience and, emboldened by prestigious new associations, Jeremy invited HRH to become President of NYMT. In the same year, 1988, NYMT found a new sponsor, Nationwide, and moved to Sadlers Wells, providing an annual 3-week season and an office with a telephone. Success indeed!