BDDA : 1976

Review #1:
Publication: Brighton & Hove Gazette
Publication Data: January 8 1977 – page ?
Text Header: Prospect pip the Wick to the post
Text: Content

The Prospect Players part of Brighton Central Free Church, pipped the Wick Theatre Group to the winning post by just two marks to take first prize in the full-length play festival organised by Brighton and District Drama Association.

The Prospect’s most challenging production, Edward Albee’s A Delicate Balance, won them the Kenneth Kent trophy, which was presented by association president Constance Cox when the results were announced at Hove Town Hall on Saturday. The group were such unsuspecting winners that only four members attended the presentation, and producer Martin Preston was not among them. Instead Brenda Heasman, a member of the cast of six and one of Prospect’s most experienced actresses, took the cup.

The group have come third in the previous two years they have entered but during this festival which ran from October to December and attracted a record number of entries, they cam top with 86 marks. Close behind with 84 were Wick, who have held the trophy for the past two years and were runners-up the year before that. Their production at Southwick’s Barn Theatre was The Marquise by Noël Coward. In third place with 80 marks came the Myra Stewart Players who put on Somerset Maughan’s 1929 play The Sacred Flame.

The Sydney Kingsley cups for best male and female performances went to Thomas James who played James Winter in The White Sheep of the Family presented by the Church of the Good Shepherd Drama Group, and to Ceinwen Clarke for her portrayal of Anna in Brighton Arts Theatre’s production of The Day After the Fair. Awards for best supporting players went to Stewart Clapperton for his rôle in Dinner with the Family presented by the Aquarius Theatre Group, and to Daisy Prince of the Myra Stewart Players. The Harold Petty Cup for special work ‘behind the scenes’ went to Philip Cronan who wrote Round to Square One as Ferring Amateur Dramatic Society’s entry.

The results were kept a closely guarded secret by association chairman Ron Wood and the adjudicator, West Sussex drama adviser George Rawlings. Mr. Rawlings said the festival had been very interesting. A lot of ‘oldies’ had been put on, but there had been some very good evenings of theatre and he congratulated the groups on keeping the theatre alive. His only criticism was the lack of good direction – amateur directors had an almost impossible task, he said – and the poor premises for presenting the plays.

” The future is rosy, for the amateur theatre movement is growing rapidly, particularly, down here, and all we need is theatres to air your work in”, he said.