Last Wednesday evening the Hampden Hall hosted a very unusual entertainment. The 110 pupils who had worked so hard for two terms preparing this year’s school musical, Oliver! gave their first and last performance of the show, to a small, but enthusiastic audience.

Lionel Bart’s Oliver! with its episodic structure and vast number of Dickensian characters is the perfect choice for a school where so many students and staff want to be involved both on stage and off. And after two terms of intense rehearsals, learning intricate harmonies with Mr House and challenging choreography from Meg Matthews for those in the cast, or weeks of technical preparation with Miss Caffyn, Miss Thorne, and Miss Kerstein, emotions ran high. This was to be my last musical at Emanuel, after nine very happy years, but also the last performance for our 13 Upper Sixth students.

However, due to the evolving situation with Covid-19 it was not to be, and the run was to be curtailed. I delivered the sad news to the company during rehearsals on Tuesday morning, and you could have heard a pin drop. Nine years of asking for quiet, I thought, and finally I get it! The company was understandably devastated but took on my next challenge to them with aplomb. We decided to raise spirits by performing ‘Oom-Pah-Pah’ in the Hampden Hall yard to the lunch queue. I had no idea how popular this would be, with a huge crowd of students and staff watching from the playground and out of numerous windows. In such a strange week this really raised the spirits of the school as a whole, bringing tears to the eyes of the most hardened teachers!

By Wednesday afternoon we were re-rehearsing the show; Seb Clifford, who had done a fine job as Bill Sikes in rehearsals, was forced to self-isolate, as was Piper Berg – one of our magnificent Pickpockets. My thanks to them for making this difficult decision. Tate Jackson stepped up to the plate, learning the role of Sikes overnight, for which he should be commended.

Wednesday evening’s performance flew by almost in a blur. Sam Stocks and Eliza Roope brought the house down with their hilarious ‘I Shall Scream’, Phoebe Gruel and Ethan Bailey Smith’s Sowerberries were a macabre masterpiece, Lars Baylis won over the audience as the perfect Artful Dodger, our gang of thieves artfully picked a pocket or two under the watchful eye of Rudi Goodman’s exquisite Fagin, earning deserved ovations throughout ‘Reviewing the Situation’, Erica Ford won Oliver’s heart as Bet and Bluebell Freeman’s Nancy tugged at the audience’s heartstrings with ‘As Long As He Needs Me’. The real heart of the show however is Oliver, and we were blessed to have Sean Bailes in the title role, who played the role beautifully and with great humility.

We were fortunate to have Mr Skinner on hand to record the evening, and I am confident that the show will reach the audience it deserves in the near future.

I would like to thank all the staff and pupils involved for their enthusiasm, compassion and never ending good humour at such a difficult time.

We’ll be back soon…

Mr Arnott (Head of Performance)

Scroll down for photos from the closed performance.