The 77th annual Highbridge Festival Of The Arts will see hundreds of performances in Burnham-On-Sea and Highbridge.
Here are the final results from the long-running festival which is shining a spotlight on the best up-and-coming performers from across the area.
The 2025 festival runs from Monday 10th – Saturday March 22nd at Burnham’s Princess Theatre and St John’s Church in Highbridge.
Monday March 10th
The first day of this year’s Highbridge Festival of The Arts began with lots of excitement as nearly 150 local school children descended on The Princess Theatre. Festival Chair, Mary Lawrence welcomed everyone and read a message from Festival President Nigel Hess who passed on his best wishes to everyone for another successful couple of weeks.
Burnham and Highbridge Mayor, Cllr Sharon Perry, presented longtime festival supporter Fay Burston with a special medallion and congratulated Fay on becoming Honorary Vice-President of the Festival of the Arts. She then told the assembled children that she was in awe of their ability to learn their poems by heart, as she needed to refer to her notes to remember her speech! And then, without more ado the Speech & Drama Section of the festival began.
Kingfisher, Magpie and Weasel classes from St Andrew’s School competed against Puffin and Pelican classes from Burnham Infants and Russet Class from Brent Knoll Primary for The Dorothy Reaney Trophy for Choral Speech. The winners were Pelican Class with their recitation of Shockadile Crocodile! by Joseph Coelho.
After a short break the inaugural competition for the Stuart Adams Memorial Trophy for Original Poetry began with eleven children reading their poems to the adjudicator. The trophy was then presented to Storm Morgan by The President of Burnham Rotary Club, Jimmy Lynch. Adjudicator, Janine Diamond, said, “It has been wonderful to engage not only with the developing communication and performance skills of the young performers, but also with their enjoyment of the live performance experience.”
The afternoon gave secondary aged pupils from The Downs Preparatory School in Wraxall, Wellington School and Crispin School in Street the opportunity to perform scripted monologues and receive positive and constructive feedback from the adjudicator. Speech & Drama Secretary, Dawn Rose, was delighted with the standard of entries in these classes and was especially pleased that four entrants achieved Honours marks.
The day was rounded off with contributions of original short stories, poetry and a scripted play from three local writers. The adjudicator said how much she had enjoyed reading all the pieces and provided valuable feedback to all the competitors. It was a mark of the quality of their work that they all received Honours marks.
The Speech & Drama Section continues on Tuesday with nearly ninety primary school children reciting poems during the day before the Dance Section begins at 10:15am on Wednesday 12 March.
