His Dark Materials Part One – King Edward’s School Witley 22nd to 24th March.
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Dramatically presenting the intellectual and spiritual elements of Phillip Pullman’s trilogy in an engaging and explanatory way, was no small challenge for King Edward’s pupils. Yet, they not only rose to the challenge but surpassed all expectations. How fitting for a school production that at the heart of the story there should be ‘kids’. These ‘kids’ were played brilliantly by Jim as Billy Costa , Oscar as Roger, supporting children included Gemma S, Gemma Band Adaeze. Rising star, Alecz, as Will Parry, took the stage in the opening scene and set an extremely high level for a polished and professional series of performances. The Headmaster, Mr. John Attwater described the play as ‘Epic.’
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Drama school hopeful, Nick produced highly polished performances as Lord Asriel and was by turns noble, humorous and utterly ruthless. Matt, King Edward’s 6th form Drama scholar, as King Iorek Byrnisson, the avenging usurped polar bear was thoroughly convincing in his energetic portrayal using both puppetry and highly talented vocal technique. Dylan developed confidently and excelled in two roles, that of the Master of Jordan College and the usurper Iofur Raknisson, another fine polar bear performance. There were eight polar bears on stage all told and these were mostly staff who had already delighted audiences with a first half performance as stuffy Oxford scholars, magnificent contributions came from Mr. Marr, whose polar bear movement was not dissimilar to a New Zealand All Black team ‘Hakka’, Mr. Gwyn Phillips, Mr. Nigel Mott, Mr. Malcolm Phillips, Mr. Dan Burgess, Mr. Fred Pennell and Alice, who was the only pupil who dared to enter the bear pit.
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Involving staff as performers alongside pupils has proved to be a great strength in this production and will be a feature of Drama at King Edward’s that will be developed further in the future. Both Olivia and Charlotte performed brilliantly as the devious but conflicted Mrs. Coulter, paralleled by their feisty daughter Lyra, played alternately by the talented pair Rachel and Hattie. Head boy, Andrew performed a chilling and cold President of the court and a truly Machiavellian and incisive performance was delivered by newcomer to drama productions, Toby as Fra Pavel. Pete was highly entertaining as Lee Scoresby, an adventuring Texan cowboy and Molly delivered a fine West Country performance as Mrs. Lonsdale.
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A coven of multinational witches held audiences spellbound with their other worldly glamour, gothic styling and amazing glowing red thumbs; Emilie and Olga appeared at key moments using physical theatre to convince the audience that they were in flight and hovering whilst presiding over their court of ‘weird sisters’ as Serafina Pekkala, Queen of the Lapland witches. Hannah and Alzbeta were also spine chilling as Ruta Skaadi, Queen of the Latvian witches. The witch ensemble starred Jennifer, Temisan, Nele and Charlotte. An array of Daemons haunted the stage throughout the performance and their detailed and focused animalistic movements worked at times better than the National Theatre’s puppetry; Anna Lena was most convincing as Pantalaimon, Lyra’s feline companion, and other animals included Eugenie, Olajumoke, Rudo, Claudia, Alisha and Gemma.
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Fifty six slick scene changes ranging from the quad of Jordan college Oxford to an Arctic ice mountain on which polar bears and children could climb on a rotating ‘journey’ were imaginatively realised by Technical Director, Chris Wilson and his highly trained backstage crew.
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Everything about the direction of this production expressed professionalism and attention to detail which evidences the unrelenting high standards of Directors, Judy Heckstall-Smith and Kerry Wilson. The overall production was masterminded and produced by Head of English and Drama, Jim Langan.
