Young take on fame

With themes as diverse as life in a moon community and terrorism on the Tube, this year's Shell Connections youth theatre festival should certainly offer something to appeal to all tastes.

And, given the calibre of the playwrights who have contributed new works for this season, it will be worth putting the last vestiges of your snobbery about 'youth theatre' on the back burner.

This week of productions, staged in the Cottesloe and Olivier theatres, is the culmination of a process that started last year with the National Theatre commissioning ten new plays from top writers.

Youth theatre groups from around the world (165 in all) were invited to pick and perform a play; a process of whittling down then began, which has left us with the 14 groups of 11 to 19-year-olds taking to the National's stage for the first time. Maybe unsurprisingly, the offering from Mark Ravenhill was the most popular choice: Totally Over You is a caustic look at the current industry of instant fame, taking MoliËre as its inspiration, and there are two interpretations of it on this week.

Also worth checking out are the contributions from bad boy Philip Ridley, whose 1997 Connections play, Sparkleshark, was a big hit, and who has again taken the theme of storytelling for Brokenville; Norwegian theatre star Jon Fosse, whose Purple is a tale of the trials and tribulations of a teenage band; and David Farr, writer of Elton John's Glasses and the excellent Crime And Punishment In Dalston, who has devised the farcical comedy The Queen Must Die, set on the eve of the Golden Jubilee celebrations. Siobhan Murphy

Tonight until next Tue, National Theatre, South Bank SE1, various dates and times, £10, £7 concs.

Tel: 020 7452 3000. Tube: Waterloo/Embankment