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ACADEMIC MATTERS
Drama
HOUSE DRAMA House Drama is an entirely studentled event with Sixth Formers writing the script and directing. Guest judges Jamie Bisping, a KGS alumnus (Look Alive, Othello) and Olivier award-winning actress Anne-Marie Duff (Shameless, The Salisbury Poisonings, Sex Education) were incredibly impressed by the standard of the acting and were so encouraging to our students. Anne-Marie discussed the importance of collaboration and creativity, and it was perhaps fitting that her favourite award of the evening was Best Ensemble as she said this is what theatre is all about. She thought there was some incredible talent on display and commended the bravery of the performers exploring deep, complex emotions. The evening, which had the theme of ‘resurrection’, was effortlessly hosted by Teva Hogarth and Toby Anderson whose rapport was infectious. Prizes were awarded across multiple categories: Best Original Script was shared between Stanley and Queen’s. Stanley’s performance, ‘Memories’ was written by Amelia Barnes and traced the memories of a lady with Alzheimer’s disease. Queen’s ‘Memory of You’, written by Zain Ahmad, Silvia Greco and Sasha Lacey, charted one young person’s descent into isolation and depression and the regret friends and family had that they had not noticed and done more to support the lead character, Neive.
For her astonishing performance as Neive, Grace Dormer was awarded the Best Actress award whilst Jasper Simmons won Best Actor for his role as ‘teacher’ in Walworth’s ‘No Bad Ideas’ where a youth theatre group explored potential ideas for a show along the theme of ‘resurrection’! Best Supporting Actress was won by Alicia Bramwell from Taverner and the award for Best Supporting Actor went to Jaeden Ford, the judges commenting on how impressed they were with the versatility of these students in being able to play characters of different age ranges. The much-coveted Best Director award was given to Isabella WalshWhitfield and Day Ko from Lovekyn for their direction of ‘The Dreamers’, a love story. As this is a house competition, there had to be an overall winner. The judges unanimously agreed that Queen’s sophisticated handling of a teenager suffering from mental health issues was intricately sculptured and superbly performed. Congratulations to them and, indeed, to all the houses involved. House Drama is officially ‘resurrected’!
HOUSE DANCE Hosts Beatrix Page and Florence Chevallier opened the show with an energetic dance leaving them somewhat breathless to welcome the audience. They were superb hosts with their relaxed, tongue-in-cheek style. Each of the five houses performed a solo, duet, musical theatre and original choreography dance.
KINGSTONIAN 2021/22
There were many outstanding performances, notably Hannah Farrell and Emily Shepherd’s innovative Michael Jackson medley, Eva Rouse and Grace Stylianou’s beautiful duet to Counting Stars, Taverner’s Mad Hatter original routine featuring excellent Fourth Year dancers and Lovekyn’s Into the Unknown from Frozen performed by the enchanting First Years. Our judges, Laura Caldow – who has performed all over the world – and Jason Piper, whose latest credit is choreographing Kylie Minogues’s Fever tour, had a difficult task on their hands but the final winners were: Best Solo: Bhavithra Gananathan (Queen’s) Best Duet: Hannah Farrell & Emily Shepherd (Stanley) Best Musical Theatre: Be Our Guest (Stanley First Years) Best Original Choreography: Abba Mash-Up (Walworth Sixth Form) Huge congratulations to Stanley as the overall winner. Many thanks to Mr Crohill and Mrs Starmer for putting it all together but, most importantly, thank you to all the students who made this such a memorable evening. Mr R Gee, Director of Drama
