The Lighthorne Festival of One Act Plays

Category: Festival News

  • Lighthorne Festival winners 2017 become national champions

    Lighthorne Festival’s 2017 winners have become national champions at the British All-Winners Finals.
     

    Didcot Phoenix Drama Group took the top prize in the One-Act section with their entry, Eugene Ionesco’s The Lesson, as well as the Youth Section trophy, won by 20-year-old Didcot actress Corin Lawfull.

    David Cooke as the Professor, Daisy Norton as the Maid and Corin Lawfull as the Pupil in the Didcot Phoenix Drama Group presentation of Eugene Ionesco’s classic 1950’s Theatre of the Absurd play, The Lesson.
    Veteran adjudicator Russell Whitely, GoDA, praised Didcot for their “powerful” performance and said he had never seen an amateur group perform the Ionesco work better. He also said that Corin Lawfull’s portrayal of the pupil, at first coquettish, then confused and, finally, terrified, was “absolute, total perfection”.
     
    Fellow Didcot actress Daisy Norton, 16, was also among the nominees for the youth prize.
     
    Winning Director Karen Carey said:” We have performed in local festivals around Oxfordshire for over 30 years but this is the first time that the group has performed on the national circuit, so to win at this level is a fantastic achievement for the group and certainly one of the high points in its 34-year history.
     
    “I’m extremely proud of the team, both on-stage and off, and very grateful for the support from members and their families. Being surrounded by science and technology industries, the arts in Didcot has often taken a back seat – but I think this proves there’s a lot of talent in Didcot.”
     
    The group won the Lighthorne Festival of One-Act Plays last month, earning the right to enter the All-Winners Finals. They are the fifth group to go forward to the national championships from Lighthorne since it was founded in 2013, but the first to win it.
     
    The week-long Finals, at the Lamproom Theatre in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, and organised by the National Drama Festivals Association, featured nine one-act and three full-length plays and represented a triple triumph for Lighthorne.
     
    Playwright Nick Marsh, from Rugby Theatre, was handed the George Taylor Memorial Trophy for the best new play featured at a NDFA-associated Festival during the previous year.
     
    Nick’s presentation was made by David Waters, managing director of publishers Stagescripts, whose award also includes a £250 cheque and a publishing deal.
     
    His play, A Frank Exchange, was the Rugby Theatre entry in the Lighthorne Festival of One Act Plays in June 2016.
     
    The judging panel, comprised of an established playwright and two GoDA adjudicators, said:”It is very well constructed, with several twists and climaxes, building to a strong, telling, harrowing conclusion.”
     
    Lighthorne Festival chairman Rod Chaytor said:”We were aware that standards are building year on year, but this is empirical proof.”
     
    ”We are delighted to share Didcot’s triumph. It is a huge achievement to win at this level. They gave a stunning interpretation of a classic theatrical piece.”
     
    “Equally, the Lighthorne Festival has always encouraged new work within a balanced programme and we offer our warmest congratulations to Nick Marsh.”
     
    Next year’s Lighthorne Festival will be held between June 5 – 9, 2018. Preliminary expressions of interest are invited from would-be entrants between now and October 31 this year, with confirmed entries by January 31, 2018.

  • Lighthorne Festival winners 2016

    A touring company from Northampton has won the fourth annual Lighthorne Festival of One-Act plays.

    White Cobra took the coveted trophy with Housebound by Simon Mawdsley, a comedy about a burglary gone wrong, which they entered at the last minute to help the organisers after another group pulled out.

    Lighthorne Festival winners 2016, Housebound by Simon Mawdsley, directed by Paul Fowler, performed by Winners White Cobra Theatre Company of Northampton. Richard Jordan as Bone the burglar, and Kate Billingham as Fiona, the agoraphobic housewife.

    The East Midlands theatre company, previous national champions, had already submitted their first choice, a tragi-comic story behind a Laurel and Hardy tribute act, entitled Another Fine Mess by Gillian Plowman.

    The group performed both plays on the second night (Thursday June 9, 2016) of the four-night Festival in which ten amateur theatre companies presented 12 plays in Lighthorne Village Hall, Warwickshire.

    Second were Great Witley Operatic Society from Worcestershire with the Burnand and Sullivan comic operetta, Cox and Box.

    Nuneaton’s Abbey Players, who were defending their title as the 2015 champions, came third and fourth respectively with their two plays, Boxing Day and Just a Straight Man. The adjudicator was Jan Palmer Sayer who is a Council Member of the Guild of Drama Adjudicators.

    White Cobra now qualify for consideration for the National Drama Festivals Association British All-Winners Finals, to be held this year in Hertford at the end of July. Lighthorne is a NDFA-recognised Festival.

    Two local playwrights whose plays were performed during the Festival, Ginny Davis from Lighthorne Drama Group with her gentle WI comedy Arrows of Desire, and Nick Marsh from Rugby Theatre with his World War Two thriller A Frank Exchange, have been nominated for NDFA’s original writing competition by the adjudicator and the Festival chairman, Rod Chaytor.

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    Arrows of Desire, tells the story of the chairman of a village WI group battling dwindling numbers, written by local playwright Ginny Davis and performed by Ginny herself (right) together with Sharon Bayliss, who played the part of Anna Gold (left), directed by Victoria Pritchard.

    He said:” For the second year running, our top four participants achieved or surpassed a score of 80, which is the Guild of Drama Adjudicators’ benchmark of excellence, and two other groups were as close as possible behind.

    “We have again this year been getting really positive feedback from our village, the wider audiences and participating groups. Everyone seems to have had a fantastic time.

    “Our guests this year included two other GoDA Council members, two national Council members of the National Drama Festivals Association, a national officer and two regional officers from the All-England Theatre Festival plus a regional officer from the National Operatic and Dramatic Association.

    “It is a tribute to our event and the village team which runs it that so many Festival organisers of national significance came from all over the country to see how we do it, just to enjoy it, or both.”

    The organisers paid tribute to the Stratford-based theatre company, Caramba, their inaugural 2013 winners, who also stepped in to fill a breach with a self-written monologue by director Kate Guest; and another Stratford group, Phoenix Players, who managed to shift an 11-hander from one night to another to accommodate forced changes to the running order.

    Next year’s Lighthorne Festival will run from Wednesday June 7 to Saturday June 10, 2017. Expressions of Interest from would-be participating groups are invited to chairman Rod Chaytor on rod.chaytor@icloud.com by October 31, this year.

     

  • Results – Lighthorne Festival of One Act Plays 2014

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    Winning Director Simon Winterman holds the (nearly visible) glass winner’s trophy alongside Festival chairman Rod Chaytor. Photo: Geoff Mayor

    Following another highly-successful event, The Lighthorne Festival of One-Act Plays will have two entrants in the National Drama Festivals Association’s British Finals in the Isle of Man this July.

    Lighthorne Drama Group is to compete alongside 2013 Winners Caramba.

    The LDG entry will be “Tell Me Another Story, Sing Me A Song” by Jean Lenox Toddie, directed by Rachel Tompkins and Phil Quinn, acted by Jess Daniel and Dawn Gazey-Lewis, which came second in the 2014 Lighthorne Festival of One-Act Plays in June.

    LDG’s opportunity has arisen because this year’s winners, Sudden Impulse from Nuneaton, were unable to apply because they are already committed to the Buxton festival, which clashes, and where they won the Best Actor award last year.

    NDFA rules say that a second placed entry may apply if the winner of an affiliated festival is genuinely unable to compete and if both entries reach over 80% on the Guild of Drama Adjudicators’ scoring scheme. LDG achieved 83%.

    Last year’s Lighthorne Festival winners, Caramba from Stratford-upon-Avon, have also been accepted to compete in the Isle of Man with their 2013 entry, Michael Frayn’s “Chinamen”, directed by Kate Guest and acted by Tim Guest and Nikki Baldwin.

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    Dawn Gazey-Lewis ( left) and Jess Daniel (right) share a tender moment as mother and daughter in the Lighthorne Drama Group production of “Tell Me Another Story, Sing Me A Song” by Jean Lenox Toddie, directed by Rachel Tompkins and Phil Quinn, at the Lighthorne Festival of One-Act Plays in June 2014. Photo: Geoff Mayor.

    They qualify for this year’s Finals because last year’s Lighthorne Festival was held a little later in the year. When the Lighthorne Festival applied for NDFA membership after its inaugural last year, it was done on the basis that the 2014 Lighthorne Festival would be held two weeks earlier, to get in synch with the NDFA calendar, but also that, exceptionally for this year’s Finals, both winners would qualify to apply in 2014. In the event, both have also been accepted.

    The NDFA Festival, which is held in a different location each year, features a youth section and full-length plays as well as the One-Act competition and will be held this year at the restored Gaiety Theatre in Douglas between July 20 and 26.

    Caramba compete on the evening of Tuesday July 22 and LDG on the evening of Wednesday July 23.

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    Sophie Sherratt as the Tart, Ray Durkin as the Patrolman and Phil Malkin as the Naked Man in the Wheelie Bin in the Sudden Impulse production of “One Was Nude And One Wore Tails” by Dario Fo, directed by Simon N.W. Winterman, which won the 2014 Lighthorne Festival of One-Act Plays. Photo: Geoff Mayor.

    Supporters Welcome!!

    The Committee of the Lighthorne Festival of One-Act Plays wishes both entrants every success and its representatives will be there to will them both on.

    As a reminder, the third annual Lighthorne Festival of One-Act Plays will be held over four nights from June 3 to June 6 next year. Expressions of interest from potentially participant theatre groups in writing, please, by October 31, 2014, and firm entries including the name of the play, the director and other details, by January 31, 2015.

    In the 2014 event, Leamington-based Irish company Tir na nOg came third with “In the Shadow of the Glen” by J.M. Synge, directed by Gus MacDonald. The Talisman, Kenilworth, received an honourable mention from GoDA adjudicator Mike Kaiser for “The Last Bread Pudding” by Nick Warburton.

    Rod Chaytor
    Chairman
    The Lighthorne Festival of One-Act Plays.