OBERON, Titania, the lovers and the fairies finally had their time on stage when pupils at Lewes Old Grammar School staged a musical rock and roll version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream last week.
After two years of stage darkness thanks to the pandemic, the LOGS actors played to full houses every night when they performed Dream, Dream, Dream, a zany London-in-the-1950s version of the Shakespeare classic comedy.
While lover Lysander becomes teddy boy Johnny Tempest and Demetrius a delightfully square RAF pilot called Dennis, Hermia becomes Belle, who refuses to marry Dennis whom her father has chosen for her and is the embodiment of the wilful “teenager” – a newly-minted creation of the 1950s. The final lover, Shakespeare’s Helena, becomes Judy, played by Emily Roberts whose honeyed voice the audience fell in love with.
The fifties theme continued with the comedic “workers” (including a gas fitter, a Rediffusion TV repair man and a blue stockinged early feminist) led by Matilda Hannigan’s Bill (Bottom) Feeder and the group were in danger of stealing the show with their joyously silly am-dram preparations of their play within a play.
Year 7’s Raphael Phag-Udom was impressive as impish Puck, managing to remember an awful lot of complicated verse, and special mention also goes to the diminutive Lila Meiland, also only 11 (12?) who played the Hippolyta character, here named Polly and so very, very funny as a straight-talking East End girl, pricking any pomposity she encountered.
LOGS head of drama Ken Lawrence’s imaginative and original rendering of the play created lovely parts for many (the wonderfully camp tailor Steve Starveling gamely played by Freddie Russell and chatting actors’ slang Polari on every occasion comes to mind) and made the most of the melodious voices of Gracie Agnew, Georgia Packham and Liv Flower, ‘the Shangri-Logs’, who treated the audience to some fifties classics in between scenes.
Sports Journalist Visits LOGS On Wednesday Year 12 were lucky to have Tom Coley come into talk to them about his profession which is sports journalism. He made it clear that both sport and journalism were some of his greatest passions and shared with us some of his great experiences. These being, interviewing Joe Cole and Gary Cahill and working
Gothia Cup in Sweden This summer, a number of LOGS pupils went off to the Gothia Youth World Cup in Sweden, forming part of the Prep School Pumas Team and representing both LOGS and England alike. Below is a report written by some of their parents. The boys flew out to the tournament alone, most for the first time, with their teams
Trampolining silver medal for Daniel Bradford Lewes Old Grammar School trampolinist Daniel Bradford has walked away with a silver medal after competing in an international competition in the Czech Republic which hosts Olympic hopefuls. The Year 11 pupil joined 200 gymnasts from 14 delegations across the world this month to compete in the country’s prestigious 47th Prague International Trampoline Friendship
