Year 9 Drama pupils spent time creating and rehearsing a variety of different short plays, to perform to a packed audience of parents, staff and friends. The Year 9 Performance Evening, which took place on Thursday 5 May in the Tithe Barn, was a resounding success, and the originality of the plays, coupled with their comedic value, made for a side-splitting evening for entertainment.
The task for the dramatists was to create their own theatre companies, devise a short play, and organise lighting, sound and publicity. The year group collectively had created a programme for the evening, with information on and an advert for each play, which every audience member received. Audiences were welcomed in with a choice of refreshments, all of which had been procured and arranged by the Year 9 themselves. They had also created some very clever sets; with little furniture and few props, the illusions of a variety of different locations was created through mime and remarks, which helped to make set changes quick and simple.
The plays covered all manner of topics, from boxing to hip-hop dancing. The opening play, King of the Ring, saw Bobby Howard-Jones as the protagonist, a young teenager who struggled with bullying, finding his passion and talent in the boxing ring and overcoming bullies. Marc Cano gave an amusing performance as a washed-up Rocky Balboa. A serious beginning was followed by a light-hearted piece called The Little Sombrero, which was a clever piece about a football player joining a team but being banned as he could only play football wearing a sombrero. It was innovative and entertaining, and had very clever use of film incorporated into it. A Fawlty Towers inspired comedy followed, called Hotel. The piece was hilarious, about a family staying at a hotel and the grandfather passes away. The piece was cleverly intertwined with another scene, about two gentlemen at the hotel for breakfast and a business meeting. One of the gentleman orders breakfast and his order is long and convoluted; the second gentleman simply says ‘toast’. The contrast in their responses and deadpan delivery made the sketch very funny.
The penultimate piece, entitled The Ancient Rebels, was about a group of old men from a home, who had to win a lump sum of prize money to keep the home open. However, the competition they’d entered was a hip-hop dance contest, and none of them could dance…! This is where Rory Diez-Harrison came in: playing an elaborate and eccentric dance teacher, he flounced around the stage in tight-fitting patterned trousers, acting every bit the dance diva! The final piece was a comedy-horror, Isn’t It Obvious?, about a group of people visiting an abandoned house, and getting killed off one by one by terrifying serial killer Patrick Kenny. Hilarious because of the contrast between the brutal, monosyllabic killer and the chattering, nervous victims, the piece was the perfect way to round off an intelligent and unique collection of plays.
