In a period of many personal firsts for me at Borlase, House Drama has been a real highlight and a wonderful celebration of all that my subject can offer and all that our wonderful students can bring.

The theme of the competition was ‘Drama Through the Ages’, which allowed us to give students the opportunity to explore different parts of the theatrical world. 

The Tutor Group Drama competition was presenting extracts from the Greek Tragedy 'Antigone'. Each form selected a section from the story that they then cast and performed in their classrooms. It was really wonderful to see the full participation of each and every member of the forms across each year group. There was some lovely use of mime, characterisation and choral vocalisation. I watched each entry and assessed them on their quality and skill, before shortlisting the top few in each Key Stage. Mrs Walder and Mr Goodall then selected their winners and runners-up, which were as follows:

KS3 Winners: Britons 1

KS3 Runners-up: Normans 2

KS4 Winners: Britons 4

KS4 Runners-up: Vikings 3

KS5 Winners: Saxons 7

KS5 Runners-up: Vikings 6

A huge congratulations go to all entries, especially to the forms listed above. In all cases they went the extra mile to consider staging, characterisation and how the ensemble could use movement to enhance the main action of the story.

The second part of the celebration was The Whole-House Drama competition.  Each House was randomly assigned a section of the excellent anti-war play 'Oh What a Lovely War!' based on the events, people and songs of the First World War. This involved a great deal of ensemble work with some lead performers. It also incorporated the terrific technical and singing abilities of members of each House. 

The students performed these to Mr Goodall and Mrs Walder in registration time during the last full week of November. The performances had a live audience in attendance (the Year 7 and 8 students from the performing Houses). This really helped to generate a great atmosphere for the performers, and allowed all of them to give  their best. Additionally, the performances were live-streamed, so that the rest of the school could watch along in their form rooms. I was really impressed with the quality and inventiveness of each of the entries. There were some excellent  set design, costume design and staging ideas. The use of projections from the First World War made the pieces even more compelling and poignant. I was extremely proud of the work that the students created in their own time. Well done to everyone involved!

The winning House was Britons, who performed a great scene from the end of Act 1, just as the war enters its first winter. In this scene the German and British troops call across to each other, exchange gifts (amidst the explosions) and sing some traditional songs. In the case of the Germans, this is the moving ‘Stille Nacht’, for the Brits, it is the rather bawdier ‘Christmas Day in the Cookhouse’!

Britons performed this with a large cast made up of a whole range of year groups. They came up into the audience to sing ‘Silent Night/Stille Nacht’ in German and English before entering the stage, which had been made up to resemble the trenches. The way they moved on and around their set was excellent, and the lighting and sound effects added to the sense of the imminent danger of No-man’s land. 

A huge congratulations to Britons for a wonderful, artistic and moving piece of theatre.

The final category was the Individual and Paired Competition. For this, our students (and members of staff) presented modern monologues and duologues to me and Ms Chislett in the week before half-term. This was a wonderful exhibition of the excellent talent we have here at Borlase. The variety of play scripts, film scripts and television scripts was absolutely wonderful to see! There was a great amount of comedy and also some powerful darker scenes as well. One notable frequent entry was the excellent 'It's literally Impossible To Be a Woman' speech from 'Barbie'. This is something that we saw performed quite a few times, as it has clearly struck a chord with our young people.  

I must commend everyone who has committed to this competition over the last few months. The level of interest and the quality of work has been phenomenal. Throughout my time at Borlase, it has been a pleasure to teach our students and to get involved in some fantastic extracurricular work. The House Drama competition has been just as fun.

I am really proud of our finalists who showed their work on the Finalists’ Performance Evening on the 23rd November. The judges were two fantastic Drama specialists: the wonderful Miss Mountfield and Miss White. They were thoroughly impressed by the variety of work on show, and the breadth of talent we have at our school. Their final verdicts were full of praise for all of our performers. Ultimately, they awarded the winners and runners-up in each category as follows:

House Drama 2023 

Monologue & Duologue Results

 

Year 7 Monologues

1st Place

Piper Seddon VIKINGS

Veruca Salt Roald Dahl 

from ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’

2nd Place

Aurelia Sprankling VIKINGS

I Dream About Flying  Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber

from ‘500 Days of Summer’

3rd Place

Harry Makepeace SAXONS

The Silent Catastrophe Unknown

 

 

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Year 8 Monologues

1st Place

Shreya Telfer SAXONS

Mobile Madness Emma Gordon

2nd Place

Oscar Trice NORMANS

WIlbur's Speech Mark O'Donnel and Thomas Meehan

from ‘Hairspray’

3rd Place

Hope Briggs VIKINGS

Journey to X Nancy Harris

 

 

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KS4 Monologues

1st Place

George Clarke SAXONS

The Porridge Trauma Incident Eleanor Mcleod

2nd Place

Luella Knight DANES

Prisoner Luella Knight

3rd Place

Lachlan Hudson-Cubitt DANES

Noughts and Crosses Malorie Blackman

 

 

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Year 12 Monologues

1st Place

Sha Choudhary BRITONS

It's Terrible Being Nice Gabriel Davis

from ‘Goodbye Charles’

2nd Place

Ella Jenkins BRITONS

Mothers Death Andrew Bovell

from ‘Things I Know to be True’

3rd Place

Lara Fox-Hill VIKINGS

Train Part One Laura Lomas

From ‘Chaos’

 

 

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Year 13 Monologues

1st Place

Lauren Bull BRITONS

Girl with shoulder pads Evan Placey

from ‘Girls Like That’

2nd Place

Alexander Hill SAXONS

Kiss Me Like You mean it Chris Chivnall

3rd Place

Pati Gwiazda BRITONS

Waiting in the Wings Joseph Arnone

Florence Morgan NORMANS

A Hundred words for snow Tatty Hennessy

 

 

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Year 7 Duologues

1st Place

Leonie Frances Weise & Aurora Taylor DANES

Matilda Roald Dahl

2nd Place

Lily Lithgow Smith & Lauren Pearce DANES

Miss Trunchbull and Bruce Chocolate Cake Scene Roald Dahl

From ‘Matilda’ 

3rd Place

Velvet Robinson & Lucy Woodbridge DANES

The Idea Scene Erich Cästner

from ‘Parent Trap’

 

 

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Year 8 Duologues

1st Place

Jack Berry & Georgia White DANES

Spellbound Alison Chaplin

2nd Place

Daisy Bergmans & Laura Querfurth DANES

Superstore Episode Justin Spitzer

from ‘Superstore’

3rd Place

Aarisha Band & Shreya Telfer SAXONS

Guilt by Sus David J. LeMaster

Immi Batt & Natasha Hogan SAXONS

Ron & Hermione Through the Years J.K. Rowling

From ‘Harry Potter’

 

 

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KS4 Duologues

1st Place

Oliver Bridgen & William Hodson ROMANS

Flightless Birds David Mitchell, Robert Webb, Olivia Colman and James Bactron

From ‘That Mitchell and Webb sound’

2nd Place

Luella Knight & Amelie Riddle DANES

Death Bringer (extract) Derek Landy

From  ‘Skulduggery Pleasant’

3rd Place

Samyukta Kannan & Mary Mosley DANES

The Beach Scene Malorie Blackman/ Sabrina Mahfouz

from ‘Noughts and Crosses’

Ella Barford & Lynette White BRITONS

The Hogwarts Library Scene (Act 2, Scene 16) J. K. Rowling, John Tiffany, Jack Thorne

from ‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’

 

 

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KS5 Duologues

1st Place

Hamish Anderson & Hattie Parkinson DANES

Lovesong Abi Morgan

2nd Place

Joe Cockroft & Freddy Smith ROMANS

Interrogation scene Christopher Nolan

from ‘The Dark Knight’ 

3rd Place

Odette Foley & Emily Tucker ROMANS

Flynn Rider and the Stabbington Brothers Disney

from ‘Tangled’

 

The leading position in the whole house competition changed hands at several turns. However, the final standings, with all of the results from the Finals evening calculated in, were as follows:

TOTAL POINTS

1st: Danes - 1335

2nd: Saxons - 1298

3rd: Britons - 1199

4th: Vikings - 756

5th: Romans - 709

6th: Normans - 448

A huge congratulations to Danes for their terrific participation and tremendous skill!

All in all, I have really enjoyed running the House Drama Competition for our staff and students. It has been a real treat to see the skill, enjoyment and enthusiasm from all involved. I look forward to supporting the House Dance event that will be launched next September!

Thank you to all involved for the wonderful support.

Berj  Tekerian

Head of Drama