Taking place for a 19th time, The Alexandra’s Stage Experience project this year sees over 70 of the Midlands’ best young theatrical talents (ages nine to 24) spending two weeks of their summer holiday working alongside a professional creative team to put on a full-scale production. In addition to this, there are also 14 participants joining The Alexandra’s technical team, gaining first-hand experience of the backstage workings of a large-scale production.

This year’s show is The Sound Of Music, which premiered on Broadway in 1959. Six years later, the film version, starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer, became one of the most commercially successful movies of all time. The Rodgers & Hammerstein-composed music is brilliant and unforgettable.

Based on a true story and set in Austria on the verge of World War Two, The Sound Of Music tells the story of Maria, a young nun in training who is sent to work as a governess for seven children. She brings the joy of music back into their orderly and strict lives, and soon captures the heart of their widowed father, Captain Georg von Trapp. Due to the Captain's unwillingness to serve the Third Reich, he and Maria resolve to leave Austria. After escaping the Nazis, they and the children set out on foot for the mountains of Switzerland...

Including all of the show’s timeless and iconic songs - such as My Favourite Things, Do-Re-Mi, Sixteen Going On Seventeen, So Long Farewell, Climb Ev’ry Mountain, and of course the title track itself - this wonderful production will make you smile from the opening scene to the final curtain.

Each year the goal of the talented young individuals who participate in The Alexandra’s Stage Experience initiative is to create a show that is in every way as professional and polished as any other production presented by the venue. The 2024 company should feel immensely proud of having achieved this - and in such a short space of time, too.

This entertaining and endearing presentation sees beautiful singing voices combined with strong and melodious harmonies. Individual and ensemble performances are every bit as breathtaking as they are powerful. Choreography is well executed, and the costumes are delightful. 

The whole cast was thoroughly deserving of the enthusiastic standing ovation they received last night, with each individual seeming to wholeheartedly embrace every single moment they spent performing in front of a live audience.

The production runs until Saturday, so if you’re quick, you can still enjoy seeing these gifted young stars of the future perform on stage.

Five stars

The Sound Of Music was reviewed by Sue Hull on Thursday 15 August at Birmingham’s The Alexandra, where it runs until Saturday (17 August)