July 2022

This year’s Lighthorne winners and runners-up have taken the two top places in the National Drama Festival – but reversed the points scored, and positions.

The Thursday Night Project won the Lighthorne Festival in June by just one mark with 91 points for “Every Brilliant Thing” by Duncan MacMillan with Jonny Donahoe, directed by Richard Brimblecombe.

The Criterion Theatre, Coventry, came second with “The Gift”( Act II) by Janice Okoh, directed by Christine Ingall.

However, a month later, at the British Championships at the Albany Theatre, Coventry, it was the Criterion which took top spot with 91 points and Thursday Night Project who came second with 90.

Adjudicator Jan Palmer Sayer, GoDA, who happened to oversee both competitions, said the difference was just a fractional improvement in on-stage reactions from the Criterion cast on the night.

It is believed to be the first time in the near 60-year-history of the National Drama Festival (formerly  the British All-Winners) that one affiliated Festival has supplied both the Winners and Runners-up in the same year.

Thursday Night Project qualified for the national contest by winning Lighthorne. The Criterion automatically qualified by a achieving a score of 90 or better.

The two plays also picked up a raft of other trophies in Coventry. Criterion cast member Anne-Marie Greene, playing Harriet, took the award for Best Comedy Moment for her excruciating on-stage demonstration of “dancing like a black woman”. She was also nominated for best actor.

The adjudicator said:”This was such a bold piece of theatre, challenging as it does our attitudes and understanding about the experience of being black and living in Britain. We have wriggled a lot, laughed a lot, enjoyed and admired this quartet of accomplished performers. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. Stupendous stuff.”

Mary Taylor, of Thursday Night Project, from Esher, Surrey, picked up the Best Actor award for her moving portrayal of Louise, the young and later adult child of a suicidal depressive.

The adjudicator said:”This was an extraordinary experience.  There are few pieces that are so completely reliant on the sustained performance of a single actor, but this is one of them. I rarely use this term, but this was, genuinely, a tour-de-force.”

The eighth Lighthorne Festival of One-Act Plays is set to take place in Lighthorne Village Hall between Tuesday June 6 and Saturday June 10, 2023. Founding adjudicator Mike Kaiser will return to take charge in what will be the Lighthorne Festival’s tenth anniversary year.

The National Drama Festival –  https://ndfa.co.uk   – is also due to return for its third year at the Albany Theatre, Coventry, in July 2023.