This year saw the introduction of a new category, a ‘Set Text’ with each house producing their own take on Shakespeare’s ‘Seven Ages of Man’ speech. The result was simply stunning, Alway House produced a brilliant shadow performance, School picked up on the different stages, De Winton produced a fantastic ensemble effort, Donaldson’s explored the imagery beautifully, Orchard used video to excellent comic affect and St David’s found the comedy and tragedy in the speech.
The monologues and duologues on offer showed great variety in style and challenge – duologues ranged from classic Rowan Atkinson to Keatley’s ‘My Mother Said I Never Should.’ The monologues included powerful and dramatic performances with in depth performances from Equus and Hare’s Secret Rapture and a powerful retelling of a Mexican Creation myth from Jack Bell (M11).
The poetry performances too seemed to reach a higher level. Full of anger and energy, irony and social comment, the performers in each house really got to the heart of each piece.
Head of Drama and Creative Arts John Johnson commented ‘In the three years that I have worked at Christ College this year’s House Speech and Drama has been the strongest in terms of the overall quality. The House Drama Captains really worked hard and the set pieces in particular showed the power of an ensemble working together to create theatre.’