LOOK Out is York Theatre Royal's first festival for a new generation of performers and writers.

Between Tuesday and next Saturday, 125 young people are participating in the inaugural event, drawn from York Youth Theatre, Pilot Youth Theatre, Borderlines Theatre Company from Stoke, Canon Lee School and Westfield Primary Community School and the Theatre Royal's nascent Young Writers project.

Last night was the first in a three-night run for York Youth Theatre's production of Simon Bent's Shelter. After the interval, three of the six plays in the Young Writers Shorts showcase were performed by the troupe of four professional actors specially convened for the festival.

Shelter is one of the stock of NT Shell Connections plays that provides a useful resource for youth theatres seeking plays with big casts. Alas, it is an enervated, thankfully short piece about the harsh realities of London life facing a group of young adults who have travelled south (from York in this particular version) to seek a new start. What an utterly miserable play it is, poorly written and wholly lacking in rhythm, hardly the stuff to inspire the cast of 14 to 16 year olds, many of whom are performing for the first time.

They have been working on the project since September but this is an under-rehearsed performance, the movement unsure, several voices too muted, faces too often looking downwards. Expressing doom and gloom in your stage debut is a tall order, and no doubt director Brian Higginson will be offering words of advice and encouragement before tonight and tomorrow's performances at 7.15pm. Let's hope the cast perks up, even if the play won't.

The second half, by contrast, was a ray of light, introducing the work of new writing talents, who had the pleasure of seeing professional actors Philip Dinsdale, Julian Kay, Vicki Hackett and Kate Hampson bring their plays to life under the direction of Amanda J Smith, Sarah Brigham and Jill Adamson.

This is early days for the Young Writers group under playwright Richard Hurford, and it promises to be one of the most rewarding projects in The Studio.

In Nineteen Seventy Seven, a fiery and humorous, tough and tender study of a young punk's learning curve by Anna Siobhan Wilcox, the 19-year-old York writer reveals a gift for dialogue, characterisation and movement. Watch this theatre space, you will be hearing more from her.

Emma Thompson's reflection on friendship, Together Standing Tall, has kitchen-sink grit and teen energy; Henry Raby's My Chance Encounter With The Almighty is whimsical and pleasingly unpredictable.

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Updated: 12:18 Friday, November 21, 2003