The magazine of the Somerset Fellowship of Drama spotlight January 2014 Charity No. 1084863 Happy New Year. Here’s to a great 2014! After huge success for Somerset drama in 2013, we are now looking forward to an even more successful 2014. With two In this month’s Spotlight… Somerset groups winning competitions at national level and with more societies Kindertransport at continuing to join the Somerset Fellowship of The Warehouse Drama, the outlook for 2014 is bright. Theatre This year we will celebrate sixty years of the See What’s On on Phoebe Rees Competition. The fact that the Page 9 competition has been going for so long is something to celebrate in itself but, more News 2 importantly, we are now seeing performances End of the Panto Dame? by Sam Allen 3 of very high standard on amateur stages all Review of the year 4 over the county. We will celebrate with a Musical Theatre Dichotomy by Sue Pomeroy 5 jubilee awards ceremony in October. What’s On 9 We will also host the Five Counties Drama Reviews 10 Festival this year. After a period when the Crossword 16 competition was down to only four counties, Hampshire is taking part this year bringing the total back up to five. There have been quite a few changes in SFD Dates for your diary in 2014 personnel in 2013 with two new moderators Saturday 8th March 2014 and coordinators and a number of new David Beach Presentation Evening adjudicators joining the fold. We know that we Somerset County Cricket Club will see further changes in 2014 as some committee members have already given notice Saturday & Sunday 22nd/23rd March 2014 of their plans to stand down over the next County Drama Festival Warehouse Theatre, Ilminster twelve months. The committee would love to see an injection of new blood and is hoping to Sunday 27th April 2014 see people coming forward to help keep SFD Five Counties Drama Festival going strong. Edington Village Hall Saturday 17th May 2014 Submissions for Spotlight welcome. Cinderella Awards Evening Wintergardens, Weston Super Mare To [email protected] By 21st of previous month please. Saturday 20th September 2014 All entries are welcome: letters, The SFD AGM What’s On, comment, articles, Venue to be announced photos etc Saturday 11th October 2014 Phoebe Rees Diamond Jubilee Awards Ceremony The Shrubbery Hotel, Ilminster 1 shows include Whistle Down the Wind, Decision to award Cinderella and Magic In The Music. In October the group also performed at Her Majesty's Theatre, London as part of a one-night show: Brewhouse lease Sunday Night Live. The Executive Committee of Taunton 2014 promises to be yet another busy year Deane Borough Council decided to award the and it kicks off with Sleeping Beauty from lease of The Brewhouse Theatre And Arts Wednesday 29 January - Saturday 1 February Centre to Taunton Theatre Association Ltd at The Swan Theatre, Yeovil. Producing a (TTA). pantomime for a cast of over 70 (and between the ages of 5 and 70) is never an easy task, The fine details of the agreement are to be however Castaways, as always, is rising to the negotiated but planning begins immediately to challenge and with a script written by Lynn Lee bring the theatre back to life on a permanent Brown which is full of cameo roles to give as basis. The anticipated opening of the doors is many children as possible their chance to shine April 2014. whilst telling this magical story. It promises to In a statement TTA thanked all those be a show to remember. organisations and individuals who have supported them over the past nine months, making this what they called a “truly a Tess in Taunton in June community venture.” Following hot on the heels of national A spokesperson for TTA said, “Contributions success with Burn Up, Taunton School’s Jane have ranged from professional advice, through Harris is now directing Tess oF the D’Urbervilles to donations, offers of goods and services, which will be staged at the school in June. Burn people offering to become our volunteers, Up won Youth Award inthe National Drama others offering ideas and contacts. We are Festivals Association All Winners Festival 2013 especially pleased that a number of performers where they also scooped the Audience and performing companies have been in touch Appreciation Award. With such a track record, to say they want to return to the Brewhouse. their production of Tess is something to look We look forward with confidence and joy to an forward to. For more details, watch this space! exciting future for the Brewhouse.” Taunton Theatre Association received a David Beach Competition donation of £25,000 from The Mackintosh Foundation. The Mackintosh Foundation, of starts for 2014 which Sir Cameron Mackintosh is a trustee, has he David Beach Competition, for among its objectives the promotion of the T performing arts of music and drama. This musicals, kicks off at the start of every New donation will help support the start-up costs of Year. Societies intending to enter this popular Taunton Theatre Association. A spokesperson competition should send their entries to for the association said, “This is a real boost competition coordinator Di Dean as soon as and a recognition of our efforts to bring theatre they can. All details are on the SFD website. and arts to the forefront again in Taunton.” Competition Moderator, Ian Hurdman said, “We still have a vacancy for an adjudicator or two!” so if you are interested in being part of Castaway Theatre Group the adjudication team contact Ian for an informal chat. looking forward to 2014 Castaway Theatre Group, is a SFD welcomes new voluntary group run by Lynn Lee Brown and who meet weekly at The Octagon Theatre, member group Yeovil. Set up initially as a way to raise funds Membership Secretary Sherry Briggs is pleased for St Margaret's Hospice, the group has since to announce that we have another new Group: grown and grown and now has a total of over Portishead Players. The SFD committee warmly 70 children and adults participating. Recent welcomes them. 2 Is this the end of the pantomime dame? By Sam Allen Spotlight editor Sam Allen ponders recent reports about the death of the Pantomime That august publication, the Daily Dame Mail, has predicted the end of the pantomime dame. At the beginning of December the Mail Which is not only scant evidence for the reported: “With their outrageous Frocks, demise of this much-loved tradition but also shocking wigs and wildly overdone make-up, reveals a dearth of understanding of the they have kept generations amused with their pantomime genre. Over the years I have seen antics. But the days oF the pantomime dame many, many, Snow White productions, and could be – for want of a better phrase – behind every single one of them had a fully-fledged, us. Much-loved traditional elements oF the festive all-functioning male playing a female, honest- shows, such as cross-dressing characters, have to-goodness Dame! Which all indicates that been done away with as productions become perhaps it’s time to look at the facts underlying more politically correct.” the story. The press articles are based on the Their analysis of professional pantos around National Database of Pantomime the country revealed that only around a tenth Performances. You can check it out for yourself of the pantos listed have female principal boys, because it has its own website: according the National Database Of Panto pantoperformances.info. Performance (NDPP). Excluding the ‘adult’ pantomimes and those Apparently it’s all to do with political where the gender of the Dame cannot be correctness. Well, it would be, wouldn’t it? identified there are 95 pantomimes listed for Young audiences, brought up in a world of this year. Of these, eight have no Dame at all, political-correctness-gone-mad (to give it its three have women playing dames and 82 have full title) no longer find cross-dressing comical! men as The Dame in good old panto tradition. As you might expect, comments on the website There are eight Snow Whites this year: five with showed that people were apoplectic. Hoss male dames; one with a female dame and two from London opined: Destroying English culture with no Dame, despite the papers’ claims that is multiculturalism's true agenda. While the performance of Snow White heralds the end Nutrock from Chadwell Heath blamed the of the Dame as we know her. practitioners: How can we let the luvvy luvvy set Perhaps the fact that only 86% of professional destroy another English tradition? ShameFul! pantomimes have males playing the Dame is But hold on a moment! Let’s just take another something to be regretted. But these analyses look at this. It is undoubtedly true that, in fail to take into account the impact of amateur professional pantomime, there has been a drama. For every professional pantomime trend over the last twenty years increasingly to there must be twenty amateur productions cast the principal boy as a man – very often a (based on the good old tradition of plucking a handsome young minor pop star or children’s figure out of the air). And there, the tradition of TV presenter! Is this political correctness? Or is a female principal boy and man-dressed-as-a- it more to do with hard-headed woman Dame is very much alive and well. commercialism? Surely stars who appeal to Occasionally we have a female playing the young audiences must boost box office takings. Dame, but that is usually due to a dearth of suitable male actors in the village and not But the Dame? That very essence of because of political correctness gone mad! pantomime tomfoolery.