Merchant of Venice

On the last Friday of term a capacity audience was welcomed to the new Ogstoun Drama Centre to watch its inaugural performance, an abridged version of The Merchant of Venice, part of the BBC's Shakespeare Schools' Festival. The audience was captivated by the 45-minute performance and the obvious enjoyment of the combined Fourth and Fifth Form cast as they revelled in being the first to stage a performance in the new building.

Due to the GCSE exam timetable the group were only able to work on the play for four days after the last GCSE exam. The rehearsal schedule demanded that they worked not only through the day but the evening as well. Nigel Williams said of them, "They have been a lovely group to work with and have really taken on the nature of the project and the ensemble way of working. The more I work with our students at Gordonstoun the more confidently I can say they are a very special group of young people of whom the School can be really proud - I certainly am".

Not only did they perform to an appreciative audience at the Ogstoun Drama Centre, they also toured locally playing to pupils at Lossiemouth High School and Elgin Academy. The show was very warmly received and it is hoped that this is the beginning of a relationship of shared work between the schools.

As part of their participation in the BBC Shakespeare Schools' Festival the cast had attended a workshop in Aberdeen earlier in the term led by actors from the Scottish Youth Theatre which had been great fun. On Sunday 3 July they then joined three other Schools from the Grampian region - Aboyne Academy (Macbeth), Alford Academy (The Tempest) and Ellon Academy (A Midsummer Night's Dream) - at the Arts Centre in Aberdeen where they once again performed A Merchant of Venice to great acclaim.

The performance at the new Drama Centre was a happy, exciting and forward-looking occasion but not without some sadness as we said goodbye to Danny Parker and Sarah Delaney, directing and assisting at their last Gordonstoun production. Danny is moving on after seven years to be Head of Drama at a school in Perth, Western Australia, and Sarah takes up her new post as Head of Drama at Cheltenham Ladies College after three years at Gordonstoun. Good luck and all the very best to them both (and Judy and Josh) from everyone here at School.