News |
House Drama
03 Mar 2025
By Mr Edwards, Director of Drama.
On Feb 28th, most of the School body squeezed into a packed Big School for the annual House Drama competition. This year’s theme was nursery rhymes, with each House given a title as an initial stimuli.
Opening the evening were Tees House, with their reinterpretation of Wee Willie Winkie; Joe Green led the group as a Cresswell-ian child, wracked with guilt over his overthrowing of a certain Mr Jackson. Up next were Marwood, with their intricate take on Baa Baa Black Sheep, where inspectors investigating a certain Tik-Flock trend ultimately tracked down Mila Johnson’s intrepid, power-hungry journalist.
Dale House followed, with a spectacular reimagining of Ring-a-Ring-a-Roses, with Jack Haslam taking the reins as Claudia Winkleman in a Traitors-inspired tale of infection and plague. Highlights were the 3 U6th of Rhys J, Seth C and Charlie A as the prince, drunken brewer and court jester respectively. North followed this up with Jack and Phil, a genuinely spine-tingling tale of boys being fed to a well to appease an entity. They played it totally straight-faced, and the piece was all the better for it.
Bowes came next, with their interpretation of Little Bo Peep, which saw an enormous ensemble creating an intricate heist of The Sheep, one of the most expensive diamonds in the world, complete with a Benny Hill-style farcical chase. Durham had the difficult job of following this, and a lack of preparation sadly showed, as they told the tale of Little Miss Muffet, with the famous curds and whey being street code for hardcore drugs.
Bringing up the rear of the competition, Longfield were the penultimate act of the evening, reimaging Hickory Dickory Dock as a biting satire on the ever-expanding marketing team, following Emily T and Izzy W on a global exploration and picking up extra staff at every stop. Last up were last year’s winners, York House, who transposed the story of Hey Diddle Diddle to the Love Island Mansion, compered by Sam G. Some witty performances were not enough to guarantee the same result as last year, unfortunately.
Winners for the evening were Dale House, who unanimously had the strongest performance of the evening, leading by 20 points, with Longfield in 2nd. The 3rd-6th places were separated by the narrowest margin, with York and Durham in the last 2 slots. Sylvan’s Squeezy Pete stood out as a wonderful comedic performance of the evening, and earned him the Best Actor in a Leading Role award, with Romilly Scales earning Best Supporting Actor for her dual roles as the glamorous catwalking airliner and Mr Dickson. Special mentions went to Noah Glossop of North House for his very strong practical performance, and in recognition of his superb script, and to Evelyn Nesbitt (Bowes) in Year 8, for a wonderfully assured performance. Special mention also went to Daisy Armstrong (Bowes), who – despite ongoing illness – wrote the entire script from her hospital bed.
