At a time when the government is doing everything it can to interest young people in the arts, it seems extraordinary that, without warning, the Arts Council should cut off funding to an organisation whose sole purpose is to celebrate young talent, and provide a gateway to a career in the theatre.

The National Student Drama Festival was set up in 1956 by the Sunday Times drama critic Harold Hobson, and the Sunday Times has supported it financially ever since. Since 1990 the festival has taken place in Scarborough, where for a week at Easter nearly 1,000 students and theatre professionals come together to perform, to debate, and to learn from each other.

At the heart of the festival are the productions chosen as the cream of the student shows of the past year. A team of selectors travels the country looking at entries for the festival presented on their home turf. Out of more than 100 entries, about a dozen will be invited to Scarborough.

They come in all shapes and sizes, and will have been entered by university theatre groups, schools and youth groups. Getting your show to Scarborough is a prize in itself, but there are more prizes to be won, awarded by judges of the calibre of Brian Cox or Fiona Shaw.

The real prize, though, is to have your work seen by your peers, and to be able to take part in the intensive programme of workshops, master classes and discussions that run day and night, all reported in the festival’s daily paper, where young drama critics get the chance to hone their skills. You don’t have to be in a production to take part in the festival — people are there because this is a week of total immersion in theatre.

The festival is a celebration — but for quite a few it is also a stepping stone, a moment when an enthusiasm turns into a commitment. Timothy West was a prize winner in the first festival, actors such as Michael York, Tim Piggot-Smith and Simon Russell Beale, writers such as Polly Teale, Mark Ravenhill and Tim Fountain, directors such as Richard Eyre, Bill Alexander and Roger Michell, and comedians such as Stephen Fry, Sandi Toksvig and Meera Syal all tested their talent at the festival.

Others have gone on to be journalists, teachers, lawyers and doctors, happy to have taken part. But as far as the festival is concerned, they are just as important, because they are the informed audience of the future. When the government goes on about citizenship, they should see the festival holding its daily discussion of the work that has been seen, or watch the way student technicians build the stages and student producers run the shows.

Next year’s festival will go ahead (March 15-21) but this 51-year-old institution is in jeopardy. The festival’s other backers, such as the Cameron Mackintosh Foundation are rallying round, and the Arts Council will find it has a fight on its hands. The festival’s appeal against the Arts Council’s decision will be heard next month.

If you want to register your views, go to www.nsdfpetition.org.uk

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