Written by Mrs Carden

What a wonderful event we had on Tuesday, 11th June! Joined in the theatre by an excitable and supportive audience of family and friends and an eager panel of judges, we saw six completely different ten-minute scenes, based around a theme of “Roald Dahl”.

Each group, consisting of a mix of students from years 7 to 12, was entirely student-led so as well as competing in matches, taking exams and all the other busy things that happen at the end of term, students met to devise and rehearse their pieces once a week.

Three of our entries were from TPS and directed by three brave (!) year 10 students: Daisy Greenhalgh, Isabella Saunders and Arthur Wilkinson – who, on top of everything else, have been coming along to a very busy and lively Year 7&8 Drama Club every week for rehearsals.

The stimulus of ‘Roald Dahl’ could be interpreted in any way they liked, so long as they kept to within the 10 minute time restriction. We had some ingenious modern interpretations, such as ‘The Witches’, set in modern day using the framework of a detective trying to solve the mystery of missing children, to a scripted piece involving interviews of the five ‘golden ticket’ winners in ‘Charlie and The Chocolate Factory’.

Our panel of illustrious judges, comprising our Head, Mr Johnson, our Deputy Head of Co-Curricular, Matt Cook, our Head of Drama, Melanie Stamp and our Director of Performing Arts from the Prep School, Philippa Simmonds, made entertaining, insightful comments after each performance and gave each a score out of 10.

After watching the six groups, whilst the judges had the difficult task of deciding a winner, there was a short interlude where we were entertained by a fantastic performance from three members of the Commercial Dance Club, choreographed by Ms Shannon Parker.

The whole evening was expertly hosted by year 12 students, Rosie Seddon, Lily Bramston and Amelie Oliff. Eventually, the winner was announced: “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”, but given everything each participant achieved in such a short space of time in such a busy term, they were all very deserving winners.