For the first time since the pandemic, the Middle School Play Festival returned to the Fettes stage, with combined brother-sister houses competing for the highly-coveted Butler Bowl.

Directed entirely by students, the Middle School Play Festival gives a fantastic opportunity both for the development of leadership and direction skills for the L6th in charge, and for wide participation across 3^rd and 4^th Form, where the vast majority of these year groups tread the boards and gain the skills and thrills of theatrical performance.

This year our theme was Greek myths and each house worked incredibly hard over two weeks with the scripts they were given to produce performances which were ambitious in their theatricality and brought engaging entertainment to their audience. Carrington and College West produced an amusing version of ‘Theseus and the Minotaur’, engagingly narrated by Renie G and with stand-out performances from Douglas G and Lucas R. College East and Moredun gave us a lively retelling of ‘Perseus and the Gorgon’, where Ife O was suitably heroic as the title character, whilst Alec L was a fearsome Medusa. In Dalmeny and Kimmerghame’s version of ‘Orpheus and Eurydice’ a natural and engaging narration from Zak A was complemented by impressively nuanced characterisation of the title characters from Edward L and Vanessa C. Arniston and Glencorse were the eventual winners chosen by our judge, Mr Robert Harrison, who was particularly taken with their ensemble retelling of ‘Odysseus and the Trojan Horse’ where some well-executed theatrical moments complemented strong central performances from Hugh R, George M and Nyasha W. The standard across all the plays was very high, and we had a true festival of theatre.