Category: News

A few days ago, we had a special celebratory tea to honour Sheila Dunn’s work on the festival. Sheila has been a smiling stalwart and a huge supporter of the festival over the years. We presented her with flowers, Theatre Vouchers and a new trophy in her name – The Sheila Dunn Trophy for Excellence in Musical Theatre – which she will present at the Highlights Concert in February to the best overall Musical Theatre performance.

Sheila is a wonderful singer, and has been from a very early age and still sings now. She learnt her stage art from belonging to various societies, including: S.A.L.O.S. Gilbert & Sullivan society, Highworth Amateur Drama Society and W.B.L.O.S. – whom she has been the President of.

Sheila’s association with the RWB Arts Festival goes right back to its conception it 2005. Back then, it was something of a ‘one man band’ under the baton of Brian Taylor, before Sandra McDowell, our Speech and Drama Chair, was brought on board and helped expand the festival to the scale and scope that it is now.

She was asked to ‘help out’ in those early days, and has been ‘helping out’ ever since! After 17 years of service, Sheila is – quite deservedly – putting her feet up. She wishes the Festival well, and values its input in helping the hundreds of very talented students and young adults in their singing careers. Your valuable input will be missed; your trophy is well deserved!

The whole committee, and no doubt all the entrants, would like to say a huge thank you, Sheila!

The Royal Wootton Bassett Arts Festival would like to pay tribute to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II whose loyalty and service to our nation over the past seventy years has been exemplary. We were deeply saddened to hear of her passing, and our thoughts are especially with her family at this time. Her fortitude and dedication in serving her country and the Commonwealth with unbounding spirit and devotion is to be hugely admired. Her Majesty was always supportive of the theatre and the arts and was patron of over 50 musical and cultural organisations, and over 600 charities around the world.

We feel privileged that our festival carries the name Royal. Her Majesty touched the hearts of people and was a shining example of grace and dedication to her nation. Our thoughts and prayers are especially with His Majesty King Charles III, the Queen’s successor, as he prepares to step into office. We send our heartfelt condolences to the Royal Family at this time.

The Poet Roger McGough paid tribute to Her Majesty this way:

God Rest the Queen

by Roger McGough

She spoke volumes quietly.
Is everywhere and will remain so
Our shared interest, our common currency
The nation cannot let her go.

Stars untwinkle one by one
The moon, in shock, averts its gaze
No words express the grief we feel
How we loved thee, let us count the ways.

The future, fearful, has gone awol
Life goes on but not the one we know
Though wreaths and words may wither
The nation will not let her go.

Guns fall silent, the flag lowered
She who kept us close is gone
Winter is composing a sad anthem
It will play on and on and on.

8 September 2022

Queen Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21st April 1926 – 8th September 2022) 

Rest in Peace

We would like to welcome Julie Williams! Julie has volunteered to be our Festival Chair and our Music Chair as well!

Julie has a wealth of experience, and we are delighted that she is joining us. Julie’s background includes music , singing and performing. She has been a big band singer, has done cabaret singing, dancing and she plays the trumpet as well! Julie is a very gifted performer, and travelled the world with an all-girl big band called Ivy Benson. She ran her own performing arts school, and has performed on national tv and radio many times, as well as producing and directing many shows at the Wyvern Theatre and Arts Centre. 

We hope you join us in wishing Julie well in this new venture!

Following the success of our first ever Poetry competition in 2019 we are again offering the opportunity to young writers to share their talents with us in 2021. This time we have FOUR CATEGORIES!

YEAR ONE & YEAR TWO

To write a POEM on the theme of SPACE or FAIRYLAND

YEAR THREE & YEAR FOUR

To write a POEM on the theme of PETS or SCHOOL

YEAR FIVE & YEAR SIX

To write a poem on the theme of WITCHES & WIZARDS or SPORTS

YEARS SEVEN – NINE

Compose a poem on GAMING or FRIENDS

We are delighted to announce that we will have a real, live poet with us on the day!

CERI GASCOYNE

Ceri will judge the entries and will be joining us on SUNDAY 21^st NOVEMBER to share in the fun!

All poems to be submitted by 31st October, 2021 to :

Mrs. Lara Farahar, 4 Grange Cottages, Grange Lane, Malmesbury, Wiltshire SN16 0EP

lara.centreddrama@outlook.com

Please attach NAME, ADDRESS, SCHOOL YEAR, D.O.B, E-MAIL & TELEPHONE NUMBER with entries. You may submit more than one entry in your category if your wish. Competition entrants should be UK based, and entrants to the Festival itself (even if not on the day of adjudication).

All POEMS will be displayed at the Festival in November. There will be a WINNER in each group with 2^nd & 3^rd Placings.  Gold, Silver and Bronze Medals will be awarded, together with a prize. Winners will also have their work printed on the web, and in the programme, and may be invited to read their work at The Highlights Concert, or on the day of presentation if they wish.

It is with mixed feelings that we announce the departure of our Festival Chair, Miranda Shirnia.

Overall, Miranda has been with us as Chair for four years, and has been with the Festival for about thirteen. She has been a stalwart of the Festival, and her endeavours have supported, shaped and delivered an ever growing Festival. We are very grateful to her for her investment of time and her support throughout these years.

So whilst we are sorry to lose Miranda, and she leaves a huge gap that we hope someone will soon be able to fill, we do, of course, wish her well. We hope that she enjoys the time she has reclaimed to do some other voluntary work which is close to her heart: working with wildlife. Miranda has many plans and we hope that she will be able to enjoy her new horizons!

Good luck, and thank you!

From all the Team at RWBAF.

If you are interested in joining the team as Chair, please see here.

We are currently working on a new on-line entry system to make our RWB Arts Festival a smoother, more modern enterprise, and to make entries much easier for all our participants.

We will be launching on July the 1st, so watch this space!