22 with our Year 10s who all gave performances of the highest quality. I think it is fair to say that this particular group of students are some of the very best Performing Arts students in the country. Twelfth Night was another Shakespeare Schools Festival smash hit - this one entirely on Zoom - with some of the older students and again the breadth and depth of talent in the student body was there for all to see. The Year 9 students performed two versions of the play Brainstorm in the Memorial Hall, live streamed to a willing audience over two nights. The show is a castinspired reflection on the challenges facing the teenage brain in the modern day. It is a real challenge for all the actors and can prove to be particularly enlightening for the audience; especially when that audience is mainly made of parents, peers and teachers. The students gave compelling and mature performances and made it very clear that the future of the Drama Department is in very safe hands. There were numerous smaller events staged throughout the lockdown period. One event, the classical monologue competition, was a particularly hard-fought contest judged by star of the screen and stage, Joe Bannister. The eventual winner was Emily O’Sullivan who has since gone on to the Mountview School of Acting - one of the leading Drama schools in the world. Huge congratulations also to Neo Merrell and Amiee Mayhew who both secured places at the equally illustrious ArtsEd School of Acting. To have three students achieve places at schools such as this at 18/19 years old is unheard of and we are all so proud of their achievements.
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