Local drama festival announces winners

The 69th Shetland County Drama festival has crowned its winners after another successful week at the Garrison Theatre.

The annual event reached its conclusion on Thursday evening with the final performances and the awarding of trophies from this year’s adjudicator Bruce Adam.

This year’s winning play was The Women of Troy which scooped both the best stage presentation and the open section trophies before taking the big prize of the weekend, the overall points winner award. The play, produced by the Westside Players, focused on the women captured in the aftermath of the Greek siege on Troy.

Elsewhere, the Brenna Players’ The Wake, a dramatic effort concerned with the friends who gather at a wake to comfort the grieving widow, was also commended with two awards – best original play (in dialect) and in the Shetland section, awarded to the best play in which the majority of the cast speak in dialect.

In the Junior Section it was Two Revolting Rhymes from the Sandwick Junior High School pupils which triumphed, while in the Youth Section Aith secondary school impressed with their play Bairns These Days…, a look at how social media affects the daily lives of children. Shetland Times reviewer Stephen Gordon referred to the play as the “most thought-provoking” on show on Tuesday evening.

Meanwhile in the junior individual trophies, Sanna Thompson of Brae Primary’s Musicians of Bremen scooped the best junior (non-dialect) while Ryan Drakeford of Happyhansel’s Da Vaila Trows took the corresponding award for use of dialect.

Zoe Spence, lead in the play Blood and Wine, picked up the prestigious adult shield, given to the best individual adult performance of the festival.

Willie Robertson, treasurer of the drama festival committee and producer/performer in comedy Thole Thy Neighbour, was the recipient of the dialect version of the same award.

In her programme notes, committee president Izzy Swanson thanked all committee members and participants in the festival for producing a “wide range of interesting theatrical experiences”.

COMMENTS(2)

Add Your Comment
  • Debra Nicolson

    • March 8th, 2019 13:07

    Hi, Shetland Times. Just want to correct something. Women of Troy also won the open section trophy. Thanks.

    REPLY
  • Nicola Balfour

    • March 8th, 2019 15:17

    Congratulations to Rhona Clark of Ronas Drama Group for winning the Youth Sheild in ‘Thank You for Protesting’.

    REPLY

Add Your Comment

Please note, it is the policy of The Shetland Times to publish comments and letters from named individuals only. Both forename and surname are required.

Comments are moderated. Contributors must observe normal standards of decency and tolerance for the opinions of others.

The views expressed are those of contributors and not of The Shetland Times.

The Shetland Times reserves the right to decline or remove any contribution without notice or stating reason.

Comments are limited to 200 words but please email longer articles or letters to editorial@shetlandtimes.co.uk for consideration and include a daytime telephone number and your address. If emailing information in confidence please put "Not for publication" in both the subject line and at the top of the main message.

200 words left

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

logo

Get Latest News in Your Inbox

Join the The Shetland Times mailing list to get one daily email update at midday on what's happening in Shetland.