The Wykehamist The Wykehamist Cloister Time 2017 | Page 6

Redfern (E) won the intermediate with a short
piano piece, and Gwilym Price (Coll) and Joe
Zubier (Coll) won the seniors, with a Fantasie
for piano, and the song ‘Trade Winds’ for
voice respectively.
The Eve of Winchester Match Concert on 16
June included Oliver Le May (A) singing
Operatic Arias, Ben Jenkins (F) and Ben
Miyano (I) playing Mendelssohn’s
Konzerstuck for two clarinets, Max Cheung
(Coll) on cello, playing Frank Bridge’s Cello
Sonata, Joe Zubier (Coll) singing Finzi’s
spectacular song cycle, To a Poet, and finally,
Victor Lu (I) performing Paganini Jazz by
Fazil Say on the piano.
One of the great successes of the year in Music
School was the new Concerto Competition,
held on 21 May. The competition involves
boys from V Book and VI Book II applying
with one or more movements from a concerto
for their own instrument. The reward is the
chance to perform with a College orchestra
next term. The finalists were Peter Costello
(B) on the horn, Bernard Ko (C) on the piano,
Asker Kurt-Elli (A) on the oboe, and Joseph
Rhee (E) on the bassoon. Each performed to
an exceptionally high standard, with the
judging being done by Old Wykehamist
Adrian Brendel and Mr Thomas. The winners
were Joseph Rhee and Bernard Ko, who will
perform next term.
║THEATRE
Sebastian Byers (I) & Matthew Chapman (E)
The Summer Plays were two short
performances put on together in QEII from 16-
18 May. The hour-long show began with a
reduction of Hamlet to fifteen minutes by Tom
Stoppard, directed by Sebastian Fraser (E),
followed by Autobahn, three of Neil Labute’s
one-act plays, directed by Adam Giles (B) and
Inigo Maciejewski (B). The reduced Hamlet
featured Freddie Fagan (A) as Hamlet and
Charlie McMillan (Coll) as Claudius. Many
scenes were omitted and speeches kept short –
the iconic “To be, or not to be?”, however, was
still there. Overall, the play was well paced,
nicely presented, and even managed to cover
the whole plot. Each of the three parts of
Autobahn features two characters, one giving a
monologue to the other in a car. Tom Pike-
Caesar (F) spoke in the first segment, as an
agitated son being driven home from rehab by
his mother. The second was between Adam
Giles (B) and Henry Beddow (B); Adam was
convincing Henry to take back his game
console from his ex-girlfriend. Last was a
confession of love by Luke Williams (B) to his
wife, despite his wrongdoings, and an angry
rant about his lack of vocabulary.
The Jun Drama Festival featured 30-minute-
long productions from each house. As usual all
of the performers were in JP and the directors
in VI Book 2. Four houses won prizes for their
entries. The winner of the Taylor Pot for most
original play was Cook’s’ Drop Dead Juliet by
Allison Williams. This play focused on the
topic of feminism in the theatre against the
backdrop of a performance of Romeo and
Juliet. For the most part this was the play with
the most sophisticated levels of satire, when
compared to the cruder comedy of some of its
counterparts. The main visual comedy did
come from the fact that the majority of the cast
were dressed in fancy skirts. Nevertheless, the
play’s effective discussion of relevant issues,
whilst still being enjoyable and witty, ensured
its award.
Third place in the main prize, Dancy Pot, was
awarded to Chawker’s for their production of
Bad Auditions by Bad Actors by Ian McWethy.
This time the performance was an entirely
comedic one and did its job very well. The
premise of the play is a series of auditions by
very strange actors for a performance of
Romeo and Juliet, a recurrent theme in this
year’s plays. This format of play is in many
ways akin to hit TV shows such as The X-
Factor and was the perfect setting for a series
of hilarious sketches. The main highlight was
the great performance of a woman who seems
to think she is a cat. In second place was
College’s adaptation of Pyramus and Thisbe
by Nicholas Richards. As one would expect
only from College the play was in Latin with a
series of four narrators translating a great deal
of the story. The original story was part of the
inspiration for Romeo and Juliet, and featured
in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The classical
setting was enhanced by the excellent
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