Congratulations to the winners of our recent Schools’ Mace and Performing Shakespeare competitions
James Anderson of St. Thomas More High School, Essex, has been announced as the winner of Best Monologue at the Performing Shakespeare Competition Grand Final on 20th March, with Ashton Williams & Siõn Thomas of Ysgol Gyfun Gymraeg Bryn Tawe in Swansea winning the award for best duologue. Corbin Abbasi won the Don Miller audience award, and Toby Owers was highly commended (both pupils are from Perse Upper School in Cambridge).
Thirty pupils made it through 11 regional finals across England and Wales to take part in the event at London’s Wyndham’s Theatre. Performances were followed by a panel discussion on Shakespeare as a Tool for Social Change, which prompted an interesting conversation between our panellists including actors Jennifer Rigby, Benet Brandreth QC, and Bathsheba Piepe.
Sparsh and Ramarni (pictured) from Wellington College, Berkshire, took home the winning trophy in The Schools’ Mace National Final on 21st March, beating teams from 12 other schools. The judging panel included Schools’ Mace alumni and Channel 4 journalist, Krishnan Guru-Murthy (also pictured on far right). Before presenting Sparsh and Ramarni with their award, Krishnan spoke for a few minutes about his experience as a Schools Mace participate, saying ‘this competition changed the course of my life and it might well do the same for you.’
Our thanks go to all the schools and branches involved in organising and running these competitions, your help is greatly appreciated. Read how the ESU changed other people’s lives at 100.esu.org.
