- I couldn't believe it.
I was over the moon and still am even now.
I was ecstatic over it.
It was possibly one of the biggest moments of my life
so far.
- New Views is the NT's playwriting programme
for young people in secondary schools
or further education colleges all over the UK.
Mainly for young people, aged 14 to 19.
This year really came with its challenges.
So we really believe in bringing people together,
and so many things were different.
So what we did is we had a camera rehearsal,
alongside two performances
with an audience of six outside of the cast
and creatives who needed to be in the room.
And then we got five cameras into the space to capture this
performance to a really high standard.
That's an incredible thing to be able to do.
- We were in drama class and my teacher mentioned this
competition. And just over the next few months,
we did workshops with the playwright
and we just discussed writing scripts.
I've seen many different representations of autism
in media before.
And so I wanted to have my own "Perspective" of it
and to show it myself.
- It's just an amazing programme for the students.
It really helped with them understanding about a play
and the structure of the play and what you have to try
and communicate to an audience through a play.
And I think it really helped with their
devising for their A level course as well.
It made a big difference.
"Perspective" is about a young boy
who I think, it's almost a coming of age story,
where he has feelings of isolation and frustration,
and that gets bullied.
But through that finds somebody who relates to him
and he can relate to her. And just,
there's a real sense at the end of hope and happiness,
really. And that you can find that happiness somewhere.
You just hope as a teacher,
that somebody's going to read that and feel the same way.
And when they did and it went through,
I was just so thrilled.
- Every day of my life. I've been laughed at,
made fun of,
excluded.
You think it gets better after a while, but...
It just wears you down, man.
- For any young person to have written a 30 minute play is
incredible. I'm really lucky that it's not my decision.
It's a real team effort.
About 40 staff in the National
Theatre will read those plays and that'll help us come up
with the shortlist of plays.
Then, we go to a panel of writers,
dramaturgs, directors who read that short list
and they decide the winning play.
It takes a village to make a show like this,
but especially when you're looking at a young person who
three weeks ago found out they won
and it's suddenly watching that show be brought to life
by a professional cast and company.
- It was brilliant working with Mackenzie.
He was incredibly open and generous, involved in prep.
It was amazing to have him in rehearsals.
And so it was brilliant just to have his insight and
experience and his eye and brain on questions that we had
about characters, the world, relationships,
what was happening in those particular moments.
- Seeing it in this space
and with so many people working on it,
it's quite overwhelming.
And it's quite humbling that so many people are getting
involved to put this production on and to give a voice to
Mackenzie and his work.
- It's amazing.
I've never even seen this sort of stuff really before,
except for like TV and film and that. Just to see it happen.
And also for the play that I wrote is just incredible.
I'm just really excited to show people what I wrote.
I'm obviously nervous
and feels quite personal to me in a way,
and I have poured my heart into it.
I want people to see kind of a reality of it,
of autism,
because there's a lot of assumptions about autism
and neuro diversions.
I'm excited to show people the play,
and I want people to realize what autism really is
and what it's like to have it.
- There's a really strong message about speaking out
and talking about how you're feeling
and how sometimes that's
really hard to do, but how you feel better after doing that.
That comes across really clearly in the play.
- So this has really motivated me to carry on writing
potentially into pursue
a career potentially in screenwriting
in the future, or in acting.
- I'm really excited to see what Mackenzie writes next.
I think he's a really talented writer.
Cannot believe that this is his first play
and the maturity and detail with which it was written.
I'm really excited to see what, what he does next.