Nova Horley’s amdram awards 2013

Once again an excellent year for amateur productions.

Musical Of The Year goes to Empire Arts for Beauty & The Beast.

The sheer dimension of the task and production requirements are a testament to Lucy O’Hare, Graham Thomson and the cast and crew to what can be achieved by young people. A superlative production on all fronts.

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Other musicals particularly worthy of note were Whistle Down The Wind from Griffins and Triple Bill from PBGS.

Best Youth Production Award must go to Parkfields School. The young people involved made scenery and costumes, did the marketing and then appeared on stage – an uplifting production of very different talents and abilities.

I also really enjoyed the Stage 1 pantomime and TADS Teens’ Wizard Of Oz. Great performances from all.

Play Of The Year for pure excellence all round has to be Children’s Hour from Dunstable Rep, but I also liked Calendar Girls, again from the Rep.

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My Best Young Performer In A Musical is Alastair Robinson as the Beast in Beauty & The Beast as he got such feeling and emotion.

Alice Hayden in the Stage 1 panto, Ruby Thorne in Whistle and Ellen Stultiens as Riff Raff for TADS Teens all gave super performances.

Best Young Performer In A Play is a shared one between Olivia Ratcliffe and Megan Wagstaffe in Children’s Hour.Excellent performances that created such good contrasts.

MD Of The Year is Graham Thomson for Empire Arts. He gets super expression and wonderful harmonies from his singers, with Beauty & The Beast showing this to perfection.

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Chris Young did a very good job on Forbidden Broadway for DAOS, while Julia Fraser and Charlotte Tabert achieved some good sounds for Whistle Down The Wind.

Most Improved Actors over the year are Dave Corbett for God Of Carnage and Matt Flitton for Children’s Hour. Both tackled new and different challenges, accomplishing them well. Gary Nash as Jim Trott in Vicar Of Dibley made an impact, too.

Best Actress goes to Dee Lovelock, who created two lovely characters – Geraldine in Vicar Of Dibley and Chris in Calendar Girls. Contrasting characters, but both achieved excellently.

Kim Albone as Karen in Children’s Hour turned in a beautiful performance, as did Christine Hobart as Annette in God Of Carnage.

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Best Performance In A Musical must be shared, as there were two very different performances of note. Paul Ramsey as The Man in Whistle for Griffins – such depth of emotion, beautiful tone and tuning – and Steve Loczy as Orin in Little Shop Of Horrors for TADS, also brilliant.

Jenna Ryder-Oliver as the Witch in Into The Woods gave a fine performance.

My Director Of The Year is Lucy O’Hare, who did super things with both Children’s Hour and Beauty & The Beast, supreme attention to detail.

Comedy Performance is Kate Johnson in Friends Of Dorothy for Griffins. She created a super inebriated character, while also worthy of mention are Richard Lovelock and Paul Rogers, the Uglies in Griffins’ Cinderella.

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Best Set? God Of Carnage and Little Voice, both designed by Alan Goss for the Rep. The set for Into The Woods was impressive, as was Griffins’ for Whistle, and TADS for Sleeping Beauty, all creating extremely good sets for a small stage.

Best Costume Award must be Empire Arts for Beauty & The Beast, an absolutely superlative set of costumes created by Gaye O’Hare.

PBGS, for Triple Bill and Salad Days, plus Stage 1 can always be relied on to turn out a good set of costumes.

Many people and productions of worth. Everyone, both technically and personally, are giving their best and it shows in the quality and standard of production.

So keep it up people, and here’s to an even more brilliant 2014.

Don’t forget to visit my website www.n-ovation.co.uk for full show reviews, including this one!