The Young Team
Lyric Hammersmith
- Opens: Tuesday, 31 August 2027 -
Booking until: Saturday, 25 September 2027
The Young Team description
The Young Team is a new stage adaptation of Graeme Armstrong's novel about a young man growing up inside a gang in North Lanarkshire.
Azzy has wanted to be part of the Young Team since he was a boy. Born and raised in Airdrie, he sees the YTP (Young Team Posse) as offering everything he could want: excitement, a sense of community and easy access to drink and drugs. As he rises through the ranks, life becomes fast and dangerous, and he has to ask whether the gang is where he belongs or simply where he has ended up. Leaving, though, is not an option.
Armstrong's debut novel, first published in 2020, became a best-seller and an award winner. This stage version is a world premiere and a co-production between the National Theatre of Scotland and the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre. It opens at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe before playing in Hammersmith and then at the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow, and it explores masculinity, friendship, loyalty, violence and belonging among boys and young men in working-class Scotland.
The adaptation is by Scottish playwright Kieran Hurley, whose plays include Beats, later adapted into a feature film, The Enemy and Square Go. It is directed by Rachel O'Riordan, artistic director of the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre, whose productions include Iphigenia in Splott. The production marks O'Riordan's return to Scottish stages.
Book tickets for The Young Team at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre and see a new Scottish play about loyalty, gangs and growing up.
