This Year at Yew Tree

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As Alice* has done such an excellent blogging job of 2015 in review I have gone on a little bit of a tangent in mine and offer you what I think are the five best guest blogs of this year.  The process of choosing them involved a lovely hour or so this morning with a cup of tea reliving the year through the many and varied voices of our generous and eloquent guest bloggers. All of those that volunteered a blog at some point this year – like those of all the years the blog has been written (it all began on the 27th of March 2009) have created a vibrant and unique picture of what we do – so if that includes you, regardless as to whether or not you are mentioned in this short summary, remember you are greatly appreciated.

Without further ado let us start with my first pick – and so we begin with Sam Winder’s blog of March the 8th – a review of Alice in Wonderland – the WYTDC production I wrote and directed.  I’ve picked this for a couple of reasons – the first is the quality of the writing – a consistent trait in Sam’s numerous YTYT guest blogs.  However I have also chosen it as it illustrates a generosity that is at the heart of what we do…the fact that Sam took time out to be part of the production and then even more time in order to write about it is utterly commendable and the hallmark of a true yewtreer!

I’m just going to pause in the announcements to commend all the debut bloggers of the year – it’s magic when a new voice arrives on our screens – and we have had a plethora of excellent fist blogs in 2015 – some of the highlights of this element of the blog would be Emily’s blog at the start of March and Sam MG’s later in the year.  Both of these along with Tom’s recent blog (not a debut blog but I was looking for somewhere to crowbar in a mention) were very strong contenders for my top 5 picks.

Now on to the second pick of the year which goes to a parent – if only to encourage more parents to blog in 2016 – thank you to Gillian for hers – a great insight for readers into Silver Company’s adventures – but the winner of this pick is Simon who gave us some real and valuable insight into the impact that Hacktivists had on him as an audience member.

My third pick would be the happy, happy blog written by Yasmin in June on the wonderful event of her getting into RADA…this blog is a testament to hard work and dedication and a must read for anyone contemplating drama school applications.  To be fair all of Yasmin’s blogs are great – and her farewell blog is no exception to this, leading me nicely to a bit of a shout out to all my farewell bloggers of 2015 – all of which were an excellent read – so thank you Dee, Jess, Yasmin, Louis, George, Charlotte and Daisy for your generous goodbyes during August.

Which brings me to my fourth pick and it was only right that in such a momentous year I pick a birthday blog from September – it was a tough pick as all the blogs about this important part of our history were brilliant but in the end I went for Ellie’s beautifully nostalgic blog about her time with YTYT.  It’s a genuinely lovely read…

My final pick was a no brainer – John’s debut blog in October is one of the most honest, insightful and eloquent blogs we’ve ever published – another perfect example of how important it is that this blog is filled with disparate and subjective voices which unified build a complete picture of what we do on a week to week basis!

I hope you enjoyed this trip through the year with me - I wonder if you agreed with my choices...they are entirely subjective and I'd love to hear yours - so if you feel I missed a great blog in my list let me know on the Facebook link to this blog...

*the blogs written by Alice over the year could all have been contenders for my list of top blogs but she got the honour of guest blogger for the 2015 review so that leaves me to be able to use her spot for another blog…it was so hard to choose just 5 so I used any at

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