General Secretary of Wharfedale Festival of Performing Arts (WFPA) Pat Dibb reports on the 118th May Festival of Speech, Drama and Choirs 2024
THE ‘amazing achievement’ is that this year’s festival happened at all due to the enforcement of government legislation which meant we were required to obtain an ‘Individual Licence to Perform’ for any state school pupil participating in a class during school hours, even though they had permission from their Head Teacher.
Sadly one local school withdrew their children when we explained the detail of the extra paperwork required for entry, but we do want to make the Wharfedale Festival accessible to anyone in the community, whether from state or independent schools, drama schools or indeed as one of our adult performers. Unless this ruling is reformed, it will make it very difficult for us to carry on if it actively prohibits pupils from local state schools from entering, especially when we should be celebrating Bradford’s 2025 year as UK City of Culture.
Tuesday, however, opened with what adjudicator Susan Mackay termed a “cracking class of wonderful performers” aged five and under performing from a choice of poems. The audience loved it and the little ones were given advice on speed of speech, projection of voices and pronouncing consonants at the end of lines: this was followed by some entertaining tongue exercises in which the audience was encouraged to participate. Meanwhile in the other room Peter Dayson was encouraging the “actors " who were all “winners” to thank their hard working teachers while he praised their posture, energy and pace.
One class had so many entrants it had to be split between two rooms. This was Verse Speaking for those aged six (year 2) and proved very difficult to adjudicate due to the quality of performances: all were commended here with Charlotte Wilson and Emily Dexter both achieving a first place, while Orla Cousins and Goldie Crane shared the honours in Memorised Prose in class 15.
The afternoon class for 10 year olds with longer, more challenging memorised poems, was advised on observing punctuation and using facial expressions rather than gestures, then again reminded about the importance of clarity produced by pronouncing consonants at the end of a word, not to sound “posh” but for audience understanding: “accents are important but do not mean sloppy speech”, she added. The adjudicator told of how when young she had to learn to talk with marbles in her mouth to speak clearly, though she did not advocate this thankfully for today’s performers.
Classes continued into the evening with some solo characterisation and Shakespeare. Performers were praised for their confidence, again advised that less was more on gestures but also given useful advice on how to move on a stage, especially if they had been influenced by early dance training which can exaggerate the way a performer walks or tries to suggest hearing a sound. Winners here included Holly Maisey, Ava Reeves and David Cullis.
The evening’s winners continued with Upstage Academy Intermediates in Theatre Time who were given an impressive score of 90 for their performance of ‘Hannah’s Homecoming’, which gained the Marlene Peters’ B trophy and was described as “excellent, entertaining devised theatre”. This year’s Public Speaking, a very enjoyable class,was won by Layla Rae Stancliffe against strong competition from two men with reminders that your subject choice should be one about which you feel passionate, but managed without notes and highly organised to achieve its effect. Prepared Prose was won by Richard Barter and the evening was concluded by a joint win from two teams from Upstage Academy Seniors in Theatre Time.
Wednesday morning was completely occupied by the annual Music Makers’ event where children arrive from Special Schools all around the area to perform songs and music in front of each other and guests. The audience, including our President Blanche Woollin, Sir James Hill and members of Ilkley Town Council, as well as our visiting adjudicators, was treated to some enthusiastic, joyous renditions of The Hungry Caterpillar, Here comes the Sun and Blackbird from the younger ones, but then a piano solo from a student at Green Meadows School before a Whitesnake track from the ‘7 Nation Army’, a version of Queen’s ‘We Will Rock You’ and finally a Samba finish to the cheers of the whole audience.
The afternoon continued with memorised and prepared prose classes and verse speaking, participants again being given advice on projection, clear ends of words and remaining confident even when they experienced so called “craft moments” translated as “can’t remember a flipping thing” by the adjudicator who added “Your parents just would not be brave enough to stand up and perform.” Those brave enough included winners Poppy Snow, Zara Dar, Mary Bartle, Donnacha Burke, Hafsah Ditta and Harriet Lamb.
The evening’s Theatre Time featured wins for Askwith Primary, Upstage Academy Juniors, Amelia Ashall and Eva Lovell in the Duo Verse Speaking then Holly Kinsell in Solo Characterisation to conclude a very enjoyable day.
Friday started with The Junior Choirs’ class and was won by Wakefield Girls’ High Junior School Year 6 in a difficult to adjudicate group where all participants were clear and dynamic in their contrasting pieces. The Junior Vocal Ensemble was won by Moorlands School in Leeds with a score of 90 where their rendition of “Bring him Home" from Les Miserables brought tears to the eyes, admitted the adjudicator John Foster.
Our Bursary winners this time were Hafsa Ditta: Verse Speaking (Sandy Lane Primary); Louis Boyce: Solo Characterisation, (Upstage Academy) and Harrison Turner-Hazel: Solo Characterisation.
We would like to thank our sponsors and volunteers for their support but the committee would like to pay a special tribute to our May organisers Lizzie Whiteley and Julie James, our Speech and Drama Secretary, whose patience and determination with all the paperwork involved for the BOPA licence allowed us to go ahead at all this year.
Our next event will be the Waterman Piano Concert on Sunday 23 June. Do please join us at the King’s Hall for a day of music featuring local talents but also two internationally renowned concert pianists who will be giving guidance before performing themselves.
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