The Lighthorne Festival of One Act Plays

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  • Banbury Cross Players win Lighthorne Festival

    Nicola Dixon (left) as The Manager and Almira Brion (right) as Emma in Banbury Cross Players’ production of the dystopian drama “Contractions” by Mike Bartlett, which won the 2019 Lighthorne Festival of One-Act Plays. Picture Peter Weston.

    A North Oxfordshire theatre group has won the 2019 Lighthorne Festival of One-Act Plays with a chilling “Orwellian” drama about an employer brainwashing a young female employee.

    The play, “Contractions” by Mike Bartlett, portrays a young saleswoman, Emma, played by Almira Brion, who has her life and eventually her mind taken over by her boss. The all-female two-hander features a convincingly robotic performance from Nicola Dixon as the firm’s HR manager.

    The Banbury Cross Players’ winning production was directed by Chrissie Garrett and produced by June Ronson.

    As a result of winning the Lighthorne Festival of One-Act Plays, the production been selected for the National Drama Festivals Association’s British All-Winners Finals which will be held in Woking, Surrey, in July 2019.

    BCP were given a score of 87 out of a possible 100 by adjudicator Mike Kaiser, a member of the Guild of Drama Adjudicators.

    They just pipped the Black Country Hollybush Arts Group from Cradley Heath who scored 86 to take second place.

    Almira Brion, who played Emma, Nicola Dixon who played The Manager together with Banbury Cross Players director, Chrissie Garrett, receiving the Lighthorne Festival trophy from adjudicator Mike Kaiser, GoDA. Picture Peter Weston.

    Ginny Davis from Wellesbourne came third with a one-woman show, in which she plays eight parts, and in fourth place was the Caramba Theatre Company of Stratford-on-Avon. Caramba were the Lighthorne Festival’s inaugural winners in 2013.

    All the top four groups scored over 80, which is considered to be the GoDA benchmark of excellence.

    Rod Chaytor, Chairman of The Lighthorne Festival of One-Act Plays, said: “Banbury Cross Players were the very first group to sign up to the idea of a Lighthorne Festival when we first began to canvass quality local theatre groups back in 2012, and we will always be grateful for that initial support.

    “In addition, they are one of only three teams to have entered every Lighthorne Festival since its inception in 2013, and we are therefore doubly grateful to them for their ongoing loyalty.

    “It was therefore an absolute delight to see them take the Lighthorne Trophy this year and with a production which merited it, one hundred percent.

    “Part of our founding ethos was that we wanted to see good local groups learn and grow from each other by virtue of the Lighthorne Festival, and, to their great credit, BCP have done exactly that. It has been a pleasure to watch them develop over the last six years. The Director, Chrissie Garrett, had clearly put hours of work into planning and preparation and had paid huge attention to detail. The two actors performed their roles brilliantly. It was a a great show.

    “We are thrilled that BCP have now been selected for the National Drama Festival Association’s British All-Winners Finals in Woking next month. We will be there to support them, and wish them every good fortune in their attempt to become national champions.”

  • Local Groups Dominate Lighthorne Festival

    Kattreya Sheurer-Smith as runaway bride Kitty and Matthew Squance as quirky zoologist Tom, who finds her stuck up a tree, in the two-hander “Uke Belong To Me”, written by Kattreya and directed by her father, Stephen, which won the 2018 Lighthorne Festival of One-Act Plays with a record score.

    Local groups dominate the Running Order for this year’s Lighthorne Festival of One-Act Plays, which will take place between Tuesday June 4 and Saturday June 8, 2019, in Lighthorne Village Hall.

    The competition, which boasts the biggest prize in British amateur theatre, has in the past attracted touring groups from as far afield as Anglesey and Cambridge. This year, however, all 12 entrants come from within an hour’s drive of the South Warwickshire village, which will be hosting its seventh annual event this year.

    Of those, nine are from Warwickshire, including five from Stratford. Two more are from north Oxfordshire, close to the Warwickshire border, and the twelfth is from Cradley Heath in the BlackCountry. Five groups are new to the Lighthorne Festival. Eight groups will be performing new work.

    Festival Committee chair Rod Chaytor said:”It’s great that in the past this still-new Festival has attracted some of the top amateur theatre groups from across the country, as it will again, but I am delighted that this year the prize must go to someone fairly local to our venue.”

    The Lighthorne Festival has a £1,000 first prize which, under Festival rules, must be divided equally between the winning group and a registered charity of their choice. The winners also take home a handsome, theirs-to-keep engraved glass trophy.

  • Festival Results 2018

    Kattreya Sheurer-Smith as runaway bride Kitty and Matthew Squance as quirky zoologist Tom, who finds her stuck up a tree, in the two-hander “Uke Belong To Me”, written by Kattreya and directed by her father, Stephen, which won the 2018 Lighthorne Festival of One-Act Plays with a record score.
    A Cambridgeshire theatre group has won the 2018 Lighthorne Festival of One-Act Plays with the highest score the Festival has ever seen.

    Big Squirrel, based in Ely, Cambs, scored an astonishing 90 out of 100 with their production of “Uke Belong To Me” written by and featuring Kattreya Sheurer-Smith and directed by her father, Stephen Sheurer-Smith.

    Adjudicator Chris Jaeger MBE, a leading member of the Guild of Drama Adjudicators, said that Kattreya and her stage partner Matthew Squance had “done everything to perfection” in the rom-com two-hander. A score of 80 is considered the GoDA benchmark of excellence.

    Judging at Lighthorne for the first time, he told the audience: “This is a truly unique festival – good quality plays, wonderful food, brilliant audiences and terrific atmosphere. It is a credit to the whole community of Lighthorne. In 20 years’ time, every Festival will look like this.”

    It is the first time a piece of new work, rather than a published play by an established playwright, has won the Lighthorne Festival.

    In second place were Lighthorne’s 2016 winners, White Cobra from Northampton presenting “Blind Date” by Peter Quilter with a score of 86, and Stratford’s Second Thoughts came third on 85 with “Whisking Eggs” by local playwright Jackie Lines.

    Kattreya Sheurer-Smith and fellow actor Matthew Squance, of the Big Squirrel theatre group, based in Ely, Cambs, receive their engraved glass winner’s trophy from Lighthorne adjudicator Chris Jaeger, MBE, GoDA.

    The top five groups, including Stratford’s Phoenix Players in fourth place and reigning British champions, Didcot Phoenix Drama Group from Oxfordshire, in fifth, all hit or surpassed the 80 mark.

    The Lighthorne Festival, now in its sixth year, offers its winner £1,000 – the biggest prize in British amateur theatre – which, under the Festival’s founding principles, must be shared 50-50 between the winning group and a registered charity of the winning group’s choice. They nominated Macmillan Cancer Support.

    Festival chairman Rod Chaytor said:”A score in the mid-to-high 80’s will easily win most Festivals and 90 or above will take the national championships. Whilst every Lighthorne winner in the past has hit the 80’s, none has before achieved 90. It is a ringing testament to the quality of the drama which groups bring to Lighthorne and demonstrates again that, year on year, standards continue to rise.”

    He added: “I saw Kat and Matthew deliver “Uke” last year and went straight up to see them afterwards to invite them to close this year’s Lighthorne event. It is a lovely, heart-warming crowd-pleaser and they perform it brilliantly, including both of them playing the ukulele during the course of the show, on stage.”

    Next year’s seventh annual Lighthorne Festival will take place between Tuesday June 4 and Saturday June 8, 2019. Expressions of interest from potential participants are invited before October 31, 2018, by emailing chairman Rod Chaytor on rod.chaytor@icloud.com.