Livingston Players triumph at Edinburgh One-Act Festival
St Serfs Players & Leitheatre also through to next round
By Thom Dibdin
The Livingston Players’ production of The Donaghue Sisters by Geraldine Aron swept the boards on the final night of the Edinburgh round of the SCDA one-act festival.
The play, directed by Ronnie Barnes and featuring Sammy Jo Dodds, Annie Townsend and Kate Halliday, came first over-all winning the Edith Fromes Trophy. A three hander set in Ireland which moves between naturalistic and ritualistic delivery, it also won the Bobby Watt Cup for Best Stage Presentation and the Eric Bennett Trophy for Highest marks for Production.
Coming second, and winning the Mrs Charles Rowland Cup were the St Serfs Players (Bangholm) with Neil Robertson’s You Really Got Me, directed by Colin Stirling-Whyte. It also won the Margaret Allan Quaich for representation of Scottish Life and Character and the audience appreciation award: Best of the Fest.
Set in a Fisherman’s mission on the east coast of Scotland in 1967, You Really Got Me was receiving its world premier production. It featured Alistair Brown, Rona Arnott, Margaret Anderson, Norman Anderson, Derek Ward, Philip Wilson, Fredericka McKinstrie, Hollie Brown and Charlie West.
The third production through to the next round was Leitheatre (kirkgate)’s production of Noel Coward’s Still Life, directed by Don Arnott. The 1936 play was later filmed as Brief Encounter and featured a 12-strong cast of Jennie Davidson, Liza Shackleton, Kirsty Wilson, Martin Dick, Matt Mason, Pat Hymers, David Rennie, Charles Jones, Moira Macdonald, Rosalind Becroft, Clem Allan and Don Arnott.
All three productions will represent Edinburgh in the Eastern Divisional Final, which is to be held at Larbert’s Dobie Hall on Thursday 21 to Saturday 23 March.
The second production from St Serfs: Jean Lennox Toddie’s Scent Of Honeysuckle directed by Phyllis Ross, won the John McIntyre Trophy for Best Moment of Theatre. A three-hander about the ties between mothers and their daughters if featured Dorsay Larnach, Alison Carcas and Wendy Barratt.
Adjudicator was by Lynn Bains, the co-founder of Stella Quines who started the performing arts course at Kirkcaldy College of Technology (now Adam Smith College) and was Head of Acting at Queen Margaret University College from 1990 to 2005.
ENDS
