French Speaking Festival

Having seen an opportunity to do both Drama and French simultaneously, a number of students immediately signed up to participate in the inaugural French Speaking Festival at King Alfred’s School on Wednesday 4th March.

After spotting the perfect play (‘Le Prénom’ by Matthieu Delaporte and Alexandre de la Patellière), our French assistant Maxime Allemande adapted the idea onto paper and gave the boys lines to learn. With a crisis looming two days before the event as one of our actors pulled out, the hero of Toby Cohen (U6H2) decided to join fellow cast members Saif-Abbas Chatoo (L6C1), Kinnar Patel (L6H2) and Josh Davis (L6R2)so that they could participate at the Senior event.

Upon arrival to the theatre in Golders Green, the boys were shocked to find Wellington College on stage rehearsing exactly the same piece, ‘Le Prénom’. But this did not throw them off course, as they stepped on the stage as the second act in the running. To their surprise, they found that throughout the performance it wasn’t just Mme Robson laughing at our jokes (and Toby’s Senegalese accent), and so the Habs actors finished full of confidence. However, after seeing some brilliantly choreographed pieces from the likes of Eton and some impressive spoken French from Dulwich College and NLCS, The Habs quartet were doubtful about their chances.

After long deliberation between the judges, Habs were awarded first place for Best Play and £250 of Eurostar Vouchers to share between them. All the cast members would like to sincerely thank Mme Robson for arranging our team and to Maxime Allemande for all his hard work with rehearsals and perfect pronunciation tips – merci!