Author: Kevin Dowsett – GB Centre AITA/AITA
Date of publication: 14/11/2025
Theatretrain is based in over 70 different places in the UK and teaches theatre skills to 6-18-year-olds out of school, usually on Saturdays. We have been established for over 30 years and have taken part in many international festivals and exchanges.
I want to tell you about our recent production at the Royal Albert Hall with a show we called “We’re Gonna Change the World.” Over the years, we have specialised in creating large-scale theatre. This can range from 400 to 4,000 performers at one event. We have performed over 100 times in West End theatres and arenas.
This project was begun during the pandemic. We asked students, their parents and creatives two questions… What is wrong with the world, and what do we need to do to fix it?
We received over 50 pages of closely typed paper full of ideas. We sorted them into the main themes from the ideas. In the first act, we concentrated on issues facing young people – things as diverse as body odour, mental health, bullying, diversity, young love and parental pressure. As it went on, the need for action on themes like climate change. Greta Thunberg was popular and often represented the voice and the direction of travel. We left the first half with an image of the world under threat. This was picked up in the second act when the world was increasingly poisoned. The performers tried reaching out to politicians, but they were powerless, so, as it was theatre, they decided to summon the world leaders, accompanied by a scary military presence. Giant puppets so Presidents Xi, Putin and Trump descended, and the performers tried to speak their feelings by flattering, joking, appealing to their feelings, but to no avail.
The world leaders were silent and eventually flew out, leaving the young people on their own, so they used the rest of the story to get the audience behind their own plans for saving the world – summed up it was you do what you can in your own corner.
This was performed to a live 19-piece orchestra and to 30 songs – a mixture of pop, rock and classics. For half of the show, the performers were part of a 600-strong choir and moved to the music and used objects en masse. In the other half, they performed around the arena, ending on the centre stage for their own featured piece.
This piece was originally performed in 2023, so this was the second performance with a different set of students. The prolonged standing ovation told us that it was well received.
Here are some of the reactions to the event in 2023.
