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College students prove a class act
Performance arts training has always been one of Chesterfield College's strengths and particularly this year.
For the first time in many years, the college has three students who have been offered places at prestigious drama schools.
Jeni Anthony from Sheffield leads the pack, being the first student from the college to be offered a place at Sir Paul McCartney's Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts.
Jennie Dunn, of Coal Aston, has been accepted for The Bridge in London and Ellie Bown of Pilsley, near Clay Cross, has been offered a place at the Academy of Live and Recorded Arts in London.
This top trio heads a distinguished group of students from the second year of the BTEC National Diploma in Performing Arts Group who have been given the opportunity to take their training further. Nearly half of the 23 students have been offered places at universities, including Cambridge, Liverpool and Cumbria.
As their time in Chesterfield draws to a close, it would be so easy for these stars-in- the-making to rest on their laurels.
But that doesn't happen at this college. Last week the second-year students were assessed on their performance skills during a production of the powerful and emotionally-charged The Coram Boy.
If the audience reaction on Thursday was any measure of success, the cast deserve a distinction. A standing ovation from students and parents, many with tears in their eyes, really didn't come better than this.
Theatre's mantra is to educate and entertain – this cast did both, to perfection.
I'm sure I wasn't the only spectator who didn't know the true story of the Coram Hospital for Deserted Children.
Unscrupulous racketeers of the 18th century would persuade desperate single mums to surrender their children to them for a fee, on the promise that their babies would be taken to hospital, but they were often sacrificing their babies to an early death.
The drama focused on the despicable baby trade and followed the fortunes of two children who actually reach the hospital, where admission rested on picking out the right colour ball from a bag.
Staging for the college's production was minimal, allowing ease of access for the large cast, with back-projected images of the hospital, a cathedral, country house and film footage of crashing waves with a face appearing through them.
The students made good use of the whole auditorium for exits and entrances and the speed of these meant there was no break in the continuity of the short, snappy scenes.
Fittingly staged during the college's annual arts festival, the production included singing, with fine solo performances from Ellie Bown and Abbie Manning, a duet by Jeni Anthony and Chantelle Jackson and exquisite choral singing from an ensemble, clarinet music from Sadie Jane Boneham, and even an appearance by composer Handel (characterised by Christopher Paul) who was a supporter of the hospital.
There were many praiseworthy performances from the young actors, particularly Alex Bollands as the money-grabbing Otis Gardiner and cruel employer Phillip Gaddarn, complete with convincing Gloucestershire accent; Tom Cliff whose portrayal of the retarded prone-to-fits baby-rescuer Meshak was outstanding and the double act of Ellie Bown and Liam McKenzie, she vulnerable yet sparky, he of strong stature yet downtrodden, as the former hospital inmates whose lives take very different turns.
The upper-crust Ashbrook family were convincingly played by Ashley Perkins as the dominant, cold-hearted lord and Joanne Hartley as his loyal, well-spoken wife, while Dannielle White, Reece Gascoigne, Abbie Manning, Danielle Mason and Shironda Green veered between the gleefulness of playful children and the stateliness of siblings of noble birth.
Other fine characterisations came from Amy Walton as the money-grabbing estate housekeeper Mrs Lynch embroiled in the baby scam, Jennie Dunn as the governess's daughter Melissa who gives up her baby, Carl Shaw and Cara Dowson who played the adult and young maestro Thomas Ledbury and Callum Milne as the snooty magistrate and hospital governor.
Atmospheric tranquil scenes were contrasted with rough and tumble in a show which tested the full range of these young actors' skills. The students rose to every challenge which this haunting show threw at them and were a credit to their director and tutor Bernie Hayter.
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Friday 25 May 2012
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