WC NOV.7
Most of my early week was taken up by the last minute planning for the County Press Amateur Theatre Awards, which took place in front of a full house of 250 at the Shanklin Conservative Club. It’s always a stressful night for me, to host and be responsible for choosing the winners, but it seemed to go down well as an event. I would like to thank the County Press for their 13 year sponsorship. They also gave me a brilliant personal gift of a special CP front page – with numerous pictures from the awards nights, and I will really treasure it.
The good news is the event will continue with Costume Workshop sponsoring the trophies. It will be in a new form and tried for a year, with a steering committee of three – and I will be continuing, which I am thrilled about.
It’s proving an exciting week with two major interviews already confirmed.
I saw an excellent production of We’ll Always Have Paris in the Bembridge village Hall. When I arrived and saw the cast, that included four previous Island Theatre Award winners, it looked likely to be a success – and so it proved. Recent winner – Fiona Gwinnett – was again in brilliant form.
The following night I enjoyed one of the greatest 60s performers of them all – Joe Brown. His concert at Shanklin Theatre was brilliant and the audience stood to honour his talents. I popped around to see Joe after the show – and he was not well at all. To perform for 2hrs 30 mins was quite remarkable – and his band backed him superbly and were all given a chance to shine.