Local drama festival announces winners

The Wake by Brenna Players was performed on Tuesday evening. From left: Alan Murdoch, Vaila Irvine and Sandra Jamieson. Photo: Austin Taylor

The 69th Shetland County Drama festival has crowned its winners after another successful week at the Garrison Theatre.

The annual event reached its conclusion on Thursday evening with the final performances and the awarding of trophies from this year’s adjudicator Bruce Adam.

This year’s winning play was The Women of Troy which scooped both the best stage presentation and the open section trophies before taking the big prize of the weekend, the overall points winner award. The play, produced by the Westside Players, focused on the women captured in the aftermath of the Greek siege on Troy.

Elsewhere, the Brenna Players’ The Wake, a dramatic effort concerned with the friends who gather at a wake to comfort the grieving widow, was also commended with two awards – best original play (in dialect) and in the Shetland section, awarded to the best play in which the majority of the cast speak in dialect.

In the Junior Section it was Two Revolting Rhymes from the Sandwick Junior High School pupils which triumphed, while in the Youth Section Aith secondary school impressed with their play Bairns These Days…, a look at how social media affects the daily lives of children. Shetland Times reviewer Stephen Gordon referred to the play as the “most thought-provoking” on show on Tuesday evening.

Meanwhile in the junior individual trophies, Sanna Thompson of Brae Primary’s Musicians of Bremen scooped the best junior (non-dialect) while Ryan Drakeford of Happyhansel’s Da Vaila Trows took the corresponding award for use of dialect.

Zoe Spence, lead in the play Blood and Wine, picked up the prestigious adult shield, given to the best individual adult performance of the festival.

Willie Robertson, treasurer of the drama festival committee and producer/performer in comedy Thole Thy Neighbour, was the recipient of the dialect version of the same award.

In her programme notes, committee president Izzy Swanson thanked all committee members and participants in the festival for producing a “wide range of interesting theatrical experiences”.