CAMBRIDGE DRAMA FESTIVAL

WHAT THE PRESS SAID ABOUT THE 2009 FESTIVAL

YOUTH  DRAMA AMONG THE BEST

“The overall standard of the youth companies in this festival is amongst the best I have ever seen” said adjudicator Andrew Rawlinson at the last night of the 2009 Cambridge Drama Festival, held at the Mumford Theatre in the last week of April.

Two Cambridge youth companies – Arbury Senior Drama Club and Estrella Theatre Company-- collected eight of the sixteen awards between them, and Arbury equalled the highest ever placing of a youth company in the festival, by coming third.   Arbury’s play “The Garden of Fallen Tales” was a new play by young Cambridge author Tom Penn, and Estrella also offered a new play ‘Swimming with Goldfish’ by Hills Road Sixth Form College student, Sean Abbs of Bar Hill  who also played the lead and won the award for best Youth Actor, a prize he had also captured in 2007, when appearing for Swavesey Village College Theatre Company. 

The winners of the festival were Clavering Players, with Jennifer Scott-Reid’s production of a moving drama about breast cancer, Tissue, by Louise Page.  Second were regular Cambridge visitors, Wilstead Players from Bedfordshire, with Lucy in the Sky by Tony Layton.

Amanda Goodman, of BBC TV’s Look East team was a last-night visitor and presented prizes to competition winners.   In interview, she revealed that she had played principal girl in panto with Melbourn Village Players some years ago, and had hopes of writing for the theatre in the future.   Judith Bowen, a distinguished actress who has performed at the Cambridge Festival many times in the past was a popular guest of honour for the awards ceremony and presented cups to the winning teams and performers.  Judith also created history by being the first guest of honour to have come every night to the festival and seen every play

Clavering go on to represent the Cambridge Festival in a quarter-final of the All-England Theatre Festival, which will be held at Haverhill Arts Centre on Sunday, May 17^th (7 p.m.).  If you missed the varied and Cambridge one-act fare,  a visit to the excellent Haverhill venue will be well worth the trouble.  Keith Thompson, GODA, is the adjudicator that evening.

The hard-working Festival stage-crew (Richard Peroni, Tony Broscomb, Sheila Pierre, and Dave McRobb) do a wonderful job hosting visiting teams through the week and guiding them to getting their plays on stage. There are invariably a few hiatuses on the way (Has this piece of scenery been fire-proofed?  Have you got permission to fire a gun?  Where is your performing licence?  And etc….). This year, however, a new issue emerged –the appearance of animals on stage.  There was much scratching of heads by theatre staff  as they deliberated whether Estrella Theatre Company could be allowed to have a live goldfish in a bowl on the set of  “Swimming with Goldfish” – as they saw it, it was an essential prop related to the theme of their play.  In the end, the wisdom of Solomon prevailed.  Since the goldfish was not being ‘removed from its natural environment’ it could be allowed to play its part on stage.  This judgement reaped unexpected rewards:  ‘Mickey, the Goldfish’  featured amongst the adjudicator’s nominations for Best Cameo Performance of the Week.  

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