In February, 48 students from Year 7 to 9 auditioned for speaking roles in ‘The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe’, and in May 48 students performed speaking roles on stage in 4 triumphant shows! The Queen’s Performing Arts is so committed to providing opportunities for our young people to get involved that we re-wrote the script to ensure that everybody who made the commitment to learn audition pieces would get their chance to shine. And the whole cast shone!
We double-cast the entire show, (effectively meaning we had to rehearse the whole show twice over), but the result was that audiences could enjoy even more accomplished performances by Team War-Drobe and Team Spare-Oom. We saw 2 wonderful White Witches, (Freya and Ellie), 2 charismatic Aslans, (Lara and Hannah), 2 spirited Lucy Pevensies, (Isla and Francesca) and so on through all the characters of the story.
This year, Queen’s Hall Theatre has been transformed into Victorian London, with falling snow, a Chinese temple, the streets of Paris with a huge revolving barricade, a speakeasy and a neon Tower of London. Finally, the entire auditorium became Narnia and audiences were delighted to enter the theatre via wardrobes full of fur coats. The entire show was beautifully designed, with atmospheric lighting and inventive and charming costumes. With such professional production values, the students were in the perfect conditions to produce their very best singing, dancing and acting.
Audiences genuinely did not want to pass back through the wardrobe to leave the delightful wonderland and as the final show ended there was a genuine feeling that we will all miss the land of Narnia. But then, there are even more exciting shows still to come next season: more details coming very soon…
The full album can be accessed here.
