Attending the sixteenth annual Youth Theatrical Road Show as a grown person was not much different than when I attended it as a five-year-old.

Aside from a new theme and different faces entertaining the crowds with their dancing, singing and acting, the final production at King's Square St. George's on Thursday evening had the same effect as always.

My final reaction was the same - I made a pledge, although short-lived, to learn to perform so that I can be in the next road show.

Several hundred people, including tourists from the nearby cruise ships, turned out for the spectacular, which this year focused on literacy.

Entitled 'Books Alive As the Pages are Turned by the Dancing Machine', the entire performance was choreographed by 14-year-old Shoa Bean who also danced and acted.

Staged in a mock library, young people from the age of seven up to 16 brought to life a host of popular children's stories through drama and theatrical performance.

The youngsters, mostly junior members of Patricia Pogson's theatre company The Company, formerly Black Box Performance Workshop, were supported by eighteen to twenty-year-old senior performers.

Despite a request that parents keep their children seated, several younger members of the audience danced to every song played, especially the soca music.

To get the audience hyped, teenagers Moneca Darrell, Eric Bean and Shoa Bean danced to Shaggy's 'Dance and Shout', a hip-hop remix of Michael Jackson's hit song.

That performance was impressive and only got better when seven-year-old Maurico Symonds graced the stage to do his Michael Jackson impersonation.

At about three feet tall the little man was doing the moonwalk and twisting and turning as though he was born to do it. The prize he later received for best male dancer was well deserved.

Settling into the show the audience enjoyed jazzed up versions of popular children's stories such as 'Lily's Purple Purse' whose star Brittany Lightbourne delightfully portrayed a noisy primary school student desperate to parade her new bag.

Many of the stories were witty spin-offs of the stories parents were probably told when they were young such as Alan MacDonald's 'Beware of the Bears', which was particularly enjoyable.

The three young people playing the three bears actually covered themselves in shaving cream and threw cereal around what they believed was Goldilocks' house - the lower stage.

Two audience members were called on the stage to portray the gingerbread man and a cow respectively in a botched version of 'The Gingerbread man'.

Poems were also recited by some of the younger performers and I heard one audience member say that the skit for Shel Silverstien's 'Sick', was "cute."

While literacy was the focus the audience also enjoyed those episodes which touched upon other facets of live.

The multi-talented Eric Bean's modern dance illustration of a dope fiend struggling to save himself was emotional and enlightening.

In a ten-minute dance he expressed that a whole community can contribute to the ultimate success or demise of a person with a drug problem.

Some East End road show regulars were disappointed that the stage was not ready in time nor placed in the regular spot in front of the Town Hall where the crew members change.

However, the stage normally used was apparently broken and the performers and stage crew did a wonderful job assembling the props so that the programme could get underway by 7.45 p.m.

I don't believe I'm the only one who left wishing that she could turn back the clock to participate in such an inspiring show of talent.

The event was sponsored by the Ministry of Youth, Sport and Recreation and the Argus Group of Companies.