On Friday the 4th of March the annual House Play Competition took place in the school hall. The 3 Houses; Diana, Atalanta and Minerva had all worked extremely hard to prepare for this day and they were all determined to get a prize.

The English play ‘Our Day Out’ by Willy Russell was split into 3 parts and each part played by a House. The play was about a ‘Progress Class’ going on a trip to Conway, and contained many serious and comic aspects of life.

‘I think all three houses contributed excellently to the unfolding of the play‘, One of the judges, Mrs. Graves, commented.

The first part was acted out by the Minerva play, and the audience enjoyed the rap-song sang by the bus driver, Henrique Barbone.

The middle part, played by Diana house was also a success. Before the play, Mr. Katz looked nervous and worried, but said ‘if it goes well as the last dress rehearsal, it will be fine’.

The last part was by Atalanta House, which had won the play last year and was determined to win this one too. The House amazed us with the great numbers of scenes it had and the efficiency with which the props were set up during the play. The Head of Atalanta House, Mr. Shaw, looked nervous and admitted that he was ‘extremely nervous’ but added ‘but we will make it ever harder for Diana and Minerva to win’.  This year's competition proved particularly fierce indeed and the judges took nearly twice as much time as usual to come to their decision.

Atalanta just piped Minerva to take the honours, with Henrique Barbone of Minerva House winning the "Best Actor" award, Minerva House winning the "Best Programme" and "Best Set" award.

At the end of the play, Mr. Shaw said he was ‘over the moon’ and felt ‘extremely privileged to be the head of such great bunch of students’. He also said that ‘Minerva and Diana also deserve great credit for all their hard work.

Miss McHugh thought it was the best play she’s ever seen in the 26 years she had been in the school.

The next big event will be the school play in November which is organised by the head of music; Mr. Onslow. He said ‘I’ll be using lots of the talented actors seen in the House play.’ Upon the question of the kind of play he’ll choose, he said that he hasn’t ‘yet decided, but it will be some kind of musical’

Midori Kurokawa, Year 11.