Groups pick up festival accolades

2:27pm Thursday 22nd March 2007

THE award for best play and best setting at last week's Hereford County Drama Festival of one-act plays went to Eardisley Little Theatre Club with their colourful and exciting production of What's for Pudding?.

Second place was awarded to The Hereford Players for Laughter in the Shadow of the Trees, with Amanda Watkins judged best actress and Beverley Powell best director.

Both the adjudicator Michael Patterson and Tony Fisher, from BBC Hereford & Worcester, praised the high standard of plays in the festival. Barebones Theatre Company entered two original youth plays by well-known playwright Peter Terson and was commended on the performance of the young actors.

The company was given an award at the adjudicator's discretion.

Best novice and best youth production awards went to an adaptation of Twelfth Night by HCS, with one of the actors, Xander Drury, gaining the best youth performance award.

Best actor award went to Robin Haig, from Phoenix Theatre Company, Ross-on-Wye, in A Resonant Frequency by Ian Pauley, who took the award for best original play.

Eardisley Little Theatre Club and The Hereford Players both performed Last Tango in Little Grimley. It was most interesting to see how the directors of these plays interpreted the text in different ways.

Pat Amos and Linsey Whey were given the champagne award for their inventive scene changes in The Hereford Players' Last Tango.

Bodenham WI was awarded best WI entry for its production, None the Wiser, and a well-deserved third place went to Hereford Amateur Operatic Society, entering the festival for the first time with Spectrum Six.

Both the first and second-placed plays go through to the second round of the All England Theatre Festival, which this year returns to the Courtyard on Saturday, April 21.