With a successful portfolio including several well-known titles such as The Flea and the Olivier Award-nominated Four Minutes Twelve Seconds, the National Youth Theatre alumn returns to his roots this year with a new play featured as part of the company’s renowned StoryFest. Guillermo Nazara chats with the author to learn more about the piece’s development and how a story about alien invasion resonates with the political landscape more than ever.
How does it feel to be opening your latest play as part of this year’s edition of StoryFest?
Super exciting. Storyfest is a chance to try something out – increasingly rare in the industry at the moment. There’s nothing like getting a new idea up in front of an audience and seeing how it lands.
How did the idea for the show come about?
When I’m writing for a young company, I want to make sure that what I’m writing about fits their age and makes use of it in the most powerful way. Otherwise, why have an upper age limit on your cast?
The world is at war. I watch and read things from Gaza and Ukraine where young people– no different in many ways from our company of actors -are saying and doing things that horrify me. And I became fascinated – how does that happen? How do whole generations give up their futures and put themselves forwards to kill other human being?
Theatre is a place of extreme empathy. And so. it feels fitting to explore how our cast’s generation might get be forced into that headspace.
One of the show’s main themes is how young minds can be weaponised. How is that topic explored throughout the narrative?
My favourite sort of writing uses a playful form or idea to express a serious topic.
So we start in a sci-fi place. This is the story of what might happen to younger generation in the UK if extraterrestrials arrived in Scotland and those extraterrestrials were seen to be hostile. And we follow that news story, as it infects every part of their day-to-day lives, fracturing their relationships and pushing them towards an incredibly dark and dangerous place.
I think the silliness of the central premise is crucial — it allows the play to breathe in a way that is fun and entertaining but hopefully still packs a punch.
Do you think that issue has become more prominent in an increasingly politically divided world?
I think humanity has always waged war and wars have always needed young people. And to get young people to do what you want, you need to get in their heads. The minds of the young have always been hot property.
Is the piece intended as comment or a call to action?
It’s intended to be a play! Whatever the audience takes from it is fine by me.
What other themes have you tried to explore and how have you done so?
It’s a play about relationships, and what conflict does to them. There’s a love story in there. A story of friendship. A story about family. A story of how loneliness can be exploited. We are all connected, and that means one major news story (like an alien ‘invasion’) starts infecting every part of our lives whether we like it or not.
It’s also, like all stories about extra-terrestrial life, a play about what it means to be human.
What particular challenges have you faced throughout the development of the piece?
It’s fast, and it has a relentless, collage-like structure — lots of interconnected but standalone scenes, building to a whole. So getting the rhythm of that right has been a challenge. But the cast are incredible, and the directors Matt and Rich have done a wonderful job.
Is there any message you’re trying to convey with this piece?
Hopefully, people will take lots of different messages. But there’s a reason why I think it could only work in a place like the National Youth Theatre, which is an organisation founded on immense optimism and trust in future generations.
Why come see ‘Mankind Forever’?
It’s funny, and strange, and surprising. And hopefully, terribly frightening at points. I’m really proud of it and everyone who’s made it.
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National Youth Theatre’s StoryFest 2026 runs until 25 July. Tickets are available on the following link.