Forget jazz hands, this performing arts charity is changing lives

PERFORMANCE: Ballet girls at NAPA

In a dilapidated city centre building in urgent need of repair, children are developing confidence and life skills through dance, drama and musical theatre. Rick Lyon paid a visit to find out more

Carl Wheatley was a few weeks into his new role as chief executive of NAPA (Northern Academy of Performing Arts) when the phone rang.

“Are you the new guy?” asked the caller.

“Yes,” replied Carl, “what can I do for you?”

“I just wanted to thank NAPA for changing my life”, came the reply.

“Are you an actor,” enquired Carl.

“No, I’m a heating engineer but if it wasn’t for NAPA I would be in prison, because the rest of my family are all in prison.”

That, says Carl, sums up the charity he recently re-joined after 25 years as a presenter on BBC Radio Humberside.

“You might look at it from the outside and think it is a middle-class occupation, with lots of middle-class kids in tutus and doing jazz hands,” he says. “It is a bit of that, of course, but what we are also doing is getting kids coming here who have trouble speaking and writing, but when they find something they are good at it improves their confidence. Academically it improves them as well – we hear that from schools all the time.

“We are changing lives. That is not over-stating it, I really and truly believe that. We are giving children confidence and life skills, like teamwork.”

Carl’s first job was on a Youth Training Scheme (YTS) with NAPA, when it was known as Northern Theatre. He later carved out a career as one of the most recognisable voices on Radio Humberside – “I’ve presented every show in every slot, from gardening to non-league football”, he says – and has now returned to where it all began.

THEATRE: Betty Blue Eyes at NAPA

And he is keen to change perceptions.

“Performing arts is an incredible thing,” he enthuses. “It’s not all about finding the next professional actor – although we do that as well – it’s about confidence and team building and making friends and having a laugh.

“The best bit of the job is seeing a shy youngster come in, watch a class and say ‘I can do that’, then they sign up and you see them develop. We see people transformed.

“It might be that they go on to appear in the West End or something like that, or it might just be that they become a bank manager who has a bit more confidence when they have to stand up at the annual conference.

“The majority of the kids who come here won’t go into the industry but that’s not the main reason we are here. We are here to coach the ones that want to – and we’ve got children at all the major drama schools in London and across the country – but really there is more to it than that. It is about confidence and you’ve got to learn to work as a team and think quickly on your feet – and that is a skill for everyone.”

As we talk in his first floor office at the Anlaby Road venue, Carl recalls his conversation with the heating engineer and it is clear he is as proud of this as any West End star performer who started out with NAPA.

NAPA teaches dance, drama and musical theatre, with pupils aged mainly between three and 18. The bulk of classes are split into four groups – primary, junior, intermediate and senior.

However, it has recently launched an over 55s drama class and also runs a visually impaired drama group, among others.

In addition, NAPA’s outreach programme sees it visit 16 Hull primary schools. In doing so, it reaches around 2,500 more children.

It doesn’t receive any external funding and instead relies on the class fees parents pay for their children to attend, although these are kept as low as possible.

“We have a big issue here in the city with barriers to things like performing arts and the lower we can keep the fees, the better,” explains Carl.

INSPIRING: NAPA is giving young people the confidence to succeed

“We’ve got quite a few students who come here on bursaries who don’t pay anything. We have 600 pupils here at the moment and my ambition is that, in the future, perhaps half of those will be free places to children who otherwise wouldn’t be able to attend.”

The charity is keen to do more to help children – and adults – find their confidence through performing arts. But one thing is holding it back.

“We want to expand but for that to happen we need to make this building fit for purpose,” explains Carl. “The roof and the windows leak and it needs a lot of work.

“We’ve had precise costings done and the building needs £1million spending on it.

“We are doing feasibility studies into where we go with that. We may put in a National Lottery Heritage Fund bid, because it’s a Grade 2 listed building and it has to be used for artistic endeavours – it can’t be turned into flats.

“I’ve written to 50 local businesses. A few have got back in touch and are interested to see what they can do.”

NAPA is holding its own fundraising events, including a gala evening in February when Carl will reveal the vision for the charity to businesses in attendance.

The vision will include the ‘development phase’, which involves sound-proofing the theatre and building works to enable classes and performances to take place at the same time.

“We’ve got a grand plan,” says Carl.  “If the theatre can run independently of the school it will mean we can have classes whenever we want and the theatre can become a community hub which could be rented out by other organisations. I think there is a real gap for a theatre of 120 seats, like we have.”

He accepts it is a huge challenge, but Carl hopes his phone will be ringing off the hook with calls from would-be criminals in years to come.