by Sean Buckley
Directed by Lisa Debney, Andrew Leggott and Eliza Wilson
Ilkley Players Greenroom for the National Theatre Connections Festival 2026
Recommended age 13+ Approx running time 60 minutes
Each year the National Theatre commissions eight new one-hour plays, specially written for teenagers by established playwrights. They then select up to 300 schools and Youth Theatre Groups throughout the country to produce these works with specialist help from their directors and experts. Ilkley Players are delighted to have been selected to participate for the fourth time.
This is how The Animals is summarised by the National Theatre team:
Student teacher Sam arrives at Redhill Youth Custody Secure Unit hoping to enrich the troubled resident's lives there by introducing them to the subject of Philosophy.
The wary class resist engaging in this alien, ancient art of thinking, at first, but start to thaw when they find themselves being challenged and empowered in ways they haven't previously experienced. Yet the hope Sam's teaching offers them is fragile, particularly for hard fronting Gee, who's on the verge of being released from the unit and is secretly terrified at this prospect. The Animals looks at education within the Youth Custody System and the difficulties young people there face.
Sean Buckley is a British-Irish playwright and screenwriter from South London. He studied drama at the University of Hull and Ecole Jaques Lecoq and was a member of the Royal Court Young Writers' Programme.
His first play Matches for Monkeys was winner of the Verity Bargate Award and he was Pearson Writer in Residence with the Royal Shakespeare Company. Other plays include Between Dog and Wolf, Smithereens (both Paines Plough) and audio drama Stone Baby (Radio 3) received a BBC New Writing Award.
Sean wrote episodes for three series of Skins (E4) and the feature length drama Responsible Child (Kudos / BBC2) for which he was BAFTA nominated and won the International Emmy for Best TV Movie/Mini-series. He has also written and directed the short film Polar Bear (Inflammable films / Film 4).
Thursday 5th - Saturday 7th March 2026 7.30pm
Tickets £8 Adults, £5 Students
Widman Studio
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