20 As this is my last Brentwoodian I thought it best to reflect on my final full year personally. Also, I think we have already asked a great deal of our students in what must have been their most challenging year to date. The resilience and creativity of the Brentwood students was consistently amazing throughout the year, in and out of lockdown, in bubbles, continually dealing with uncertainty. The undoubted highlight for me was the creation of Lockdown:The Musical. Mr Cooper and I had long mused on the idea of writing a new musical and there is a hint of irony that only through isolation were we able to find the time to actually write the thing. The two of us, along with Mr Charlesworth, found ourselves allowed into school while the students were asked to remain at home. After a day of Zoom teaching the perfect tonic was to give our much repressed creative instincts the freedom that had been somewhat tempered over the preceding months.We also felt genuinely terrible that the Upper Sixth, this incredibly committed and talented year group, has been robbed of performing arts their final Musical. And so such ‘classics’ as All Alone, Carpe Frickin’ Diem and We’re Gonna Bring the Noise were released as part of a 40-minute brand new musical. The students were great, giving up their ‘outside’ time to record and record again, in rain, wind and quite literally snow. The process was extremely technical and potentially took longer to complete than a normal two-hour live musical. Huge congratulations must be given to Neo M,Will J, Eshan C, Charles T, Chloe S, Melissa M, Lucy H and Freya C who not only performed beautifully, but worked very hard behind the scenes in response to the barrage of emails and requests they received from us. It is a project that will live with me for a long, long time. It was with these students that our lockdown experience began. Something we all had to try to master quickly - I don’t think we ever got close to actual mastery - was sound and video editing. My first foray was taking the many, many snippets of Les Misérables (the 2019 Musical, our last live event) and trying to turn it into an enjoyable viewing experience for all those at home. I think I just about managed it but
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