The inaugural International Youth Arts Festival (IYAF) will take over Kingston in July as the best in local, national and international talent performs at venues including the Rose Theatre, the Arthur Cotterell Theatre and Kingston Grammar School.

The festival runs from July 3 to 12 and tickets for all shows are on sale now.

Highlights at the Rose include the festival’s flagship production, Pendragon (July 8, 10, 12), featuring 40 drama students from Kingston schools and Kingston University, and Thule Siswe (July 9) , a musical presented by South Africa’s God’s Golden Acre theatre company and a group of young Zulu warriors.

Robin Hutchinson, chair of the IYAF, is calling on the public to support the festival and help make it a regular fixture on Kingston’s cultural calendar.

He says: “Anyone who loves the arts should support the first year of this amazing festival.

“Please come along and see as much as you can of this wonderful programme and make sure you can say you were there at the start of the International Youth Arts Festival.”

The festival programme is packed with plays including The Balcony, by Jean Genet (Arthur Cotterell, July 12), Shakers, by John Godber and Jane Thornton (Kingston Grammar School, July 3), and Ubi Roi, by Alfred Jarry (Rose Studio, July 6).

On July 4 at the Rose there is an evening of dance that brings together seven young people’s dance companies and this will be followed by the Sakoba Student Showcase (July 7) at Kingston Grammar School featuring a group of young people performing work developed in workshops with Sakoba, the pioneering African performance company.

A number of other venues will also be hosting events, including All Saints’ Church, where you can see A Thin Space (July 7) – a collaboration between the school’s dance group, choir and the Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance.

The cornerHOUSE in Surbiton, is hosting youngsters from the Kingston Music and Arts Service who will perform Eve Garnett’s play The Family from One End Street (July 2- 3).

Kingston-born actor and patron of the festival Chiké Okonkwo learned his trade performing in youth drama groups at the Douglas Centre in Tolworth and the star of the BBC’s New Tricks cannot wait for the festival to get underway.

"I feel very lucky to have been born in Kingston,” he says.

“I feel very much a product of my area in that I can trace a line directly from the youth arts I was a part of in the Royal Borough, to anything I have achieved as a professional actor.

“I am proud to be a part of the IYAF and look forward to the great creativity that is always the result when talent, enthusiasm and youth are combined."

International Youth Arts Festival, July 3 to 12, for more information on all of these events and more visit iyafestival.org