Bancrofts Insight Newsletter Autumn 2019 Final

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T H E A R T S
8
To Charlie
This year, I was lucky enough for my one-act play, To Charlie,
to be shortlisted for the National Theatre NewViews
playwriting competition.Though I have had a long-standing
love for performing, the Lower Sixth marked my first foray
into writing and directing, which gave me totally new insight
into one of my passions.
As one of nine shortlisted plays out of over three hundred
entries, my play about family reconciliation in the hours before
childbirth was given a rehearsed reading at the National Theatre
in July. It was surreal to see actors who I’d seen on shows such
as Outnumbered and Waterloo Road reading my lines, asking me
for my interpretations and motivations behind my work. New
Views is such a unique opportunity to work with professionals in
the industry to enhance your own work; I’m very jealous of the
Bancroftian cohort doing the competition this year who get to
experience the whole process for the first time!
Not only was my play read out, but I got to stage a fully-fledged
production in the last week of summer term. Georgia Moncur,
Malini Sachdeva-Masson and Alex O’Brien helped me to realise
theatrical solutions to all the problems that I’d naively assumed
I wouldn’t have to deal with and breathed life into characters
I’d written whose experiences were way beyond our school
experience, a testament to their talent.This was the main lesson
I learned from NewViews and the advice I’d pass on to anybody
wanting to write - it is not so much about writing what you know
than about breaking every emotion down to its bare essentials.
Emilia Hitching, U6W
Junior Musical
Bugsy Malone
Mathew Pinto, U4E
On the 19, 20 and 21 June this year, the Lower School put on a
production of Alan Parker’s Bugsy Malone.We started rehearsing
much further back in the year, giving us a lot of time for
had a wonderful musical accompaniment, both
in rehearsals with Mr Kelsall, and in the show with a full band.
On theWednesday we performed twice, first to the Prep
School and then an evening show for all.This was followed by
two evening shows on the Thursday and the Friday. I think a vast
improvement was made just from the experience of actually
performing to an audience rather than to a wall. Performing
taught us discipline both on-stage and off-stage and was very
helpful to all the ended up having two of each of the
female lead roles because there aren’t a lot of them, so
we had to spreadit out.
While neither Georgia nor I could necessarily relate to a thirty-
something woman estranged from her mother about to give birth,
anybody can write compellingly about the feelings of loneliness
and inadequacy behind such a situation.
Directing, designing the tech (I was particularly proud of the
‘welcome to the world’ card I made online with some artsy
black-and-white mother-and-baby photos) and staging the physical
theatre would have been impossible without the help of Ms
Middleton and Gareth, our tech assistant. I am so grateful for a
fantastic opportunity which I will never forget and a view into a
possible career.
I would like to say thank you to all the cast and crew for making
the show what it was. It was a marvellous experience and I think
we all would say the same. I would like to say thank you to both
Mrs Whitbread and Ms Entwistle for directing and putting so much
of their extra time into working with us in rehearsals, thank you
to Mr Kelsall and the band for such a wonderful accompaniment
and to Mr Whitbread for building the set.The difference in our
performance and discipline from that first Wednesday afternoon
show to the final one on Friday was enormous.