Xing Bing announced as UK competition winner

This afternoon saw the launch of the Worlds Apart project at the National Youth Theatre’s headquarters in Holloway Road.and the announcement of the winning entry in the online creative writing competition run in partnership with BBC Blast. The ten young writers who had been shortlisted for the competition spent the morning in a writing workshop with Natasha Betteridge. After lunch, they took part in a Q&A session with some of the judges including the National Youth Theatre’s Artistic Director Paul Roseby and playwright Mark Ravenhill. Natasha, meanwhile, was putting the finishing touches on the afternoon’s programme which included performances of all ten shortlisted 100 word plays, two plays from the parallel competition being run in China and some short films. A talented cast of National Youth Theatre members had been put together especially for the performance and had spent a few days working with Natasha and Jennifer Lim, Assistant Director, on developing and rehearsing all the plays.

The final performance hit just the right note – informal, yet highly professional and very enjoyable. The plays were all inspired by the theme ‘My World – Being a Young Person in Britain Today’ and as ever with 100 Words projects, were very different in their approach. The quality was extremely high with four plays eventually shortlisted – Plural Life by Tom Lyons, Pathways by Mikel Iriarte, The Story of My Body by Roisin Nagle and I’m Not Growing Up by Amy Clarke. These will all be performed in Beijing later in the summer when Worlds Apart moves to China. The unanimous choice for the winning play was My World by Xing Bing, a thought-provoking exploration of how, as individuals, we all view and interpret the world differently. My World will now be turned into a short film, to be directed by award winning director Asif Kapadia and shown on 30 April 2008 at East to East, a free lunchtime event in East Winter Garden, Canary Wharf with a live link to a similar event in Beijing.

With thanks to all the writers (Matt Broomfield, Heather Brown, Hannah Brownlow, Amy Clarke, Xing Ding, Connie Greenfield, Mikel Iriarte, Tom Lyons, Roisin Nagle and Elidh Wagstaff), the cast (Asha Bhatt, Venetia Campbell, George Chilcott, Leaphia Darko, Ned Derrington, Joel Duncan, Tiburcio Fortes, Nelufar Hedayat, Sanya John Adegbola, Catherine Jones, Adam Price, Nancy Wallinger and Daniel Ward) and the technical team led by the National Youth Theatre’s Production Manager, Mark Beasley.