SCDA_Press_release

18th March 2004

SIDE BY SIDE: KILLIN "EVERGREENS" SING FOR DRAMA SUCCESS

Killin Drama Club has gone to unusual lengths to ensure the authenticity of a play it is presenting at a top drama festival next week.

The club, which is hosting the Divisional round of the Scottish Community Drama Association one-act play festival in the village's McLaren Hall next week, is staging "The Evergreens" by David Campton.

It's all about an elderly couple who are brought together again after a forty-year period. It starts acrimoniously but soon the relationship improves and is both a poignant love story and a hilarious comedy.

The play requires the sound effect of some old people singing "Side by Side"…in a bus! But the club wasn't satisfied with the version they found on the Internet.

Killin's Gordon Hibbert, who stars in the play along with Glenda Mardon, explains: "Ideally we needed a recording of old people on a bus singing "Side by Side". Some lateral thinking took us to the Killin Nurses' Daycare centre where we rehearsed with seven lovely old ladies.

"The following week we came back with a mini bus and took them for a spin around the village while recording the singing. It was perfect and gave us exactly what we wanted for the play.

"The ladies were fantastic and really entered in to the spirit of things. One even asked us: " What should we wear for the recording?"!

"Hopefully they'll be in the front row of the hall next Thursday night when we perform to see the whole thing.

"I think their involvement perfectly epitomises what community drama is all about."

Gordon's a busy man, for as well as appearing in the festival, he chairs the committee that's organising it. He and his colleagues are now putting the finishing touches to the three-day event which starts on Thursday March 25.

Nine top drama clubs - from Killin to Yetholm in the Borders - are competing for two places in the SCDA Scottish Finals in Inverness in May. Adjudicator Tom Doherty has the difficult task of deciding which two will go forward.

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9th March 2004

KILLIN TO HOST TOP DRAMA FESTIVAL FOR FIRST TIME

PREPARATIONS are in full swing in the tiny Perthshire village of Killin to welcome 700 theatre-lovers later this month.

While thousands will be descending upon Balado for T in the Park in July, Killin is hosting its own arts celebration in March - the Divisional round of the Scottish Community Drama Association 2004 one-act play festival.

It's the first time the village has hosted the prestigious event, now in its seventy-eighth year.

Organisers estimate the festival will give the local economy a huge £50,000 boost at the start of the tourist season, with performers and audience members arriving from all over Scotland to savour the top-class event in the picture-postcard village.

The drama festival, featuring the best of theatre from clubs as far afield as Killin, Kirkcaldy, Edinburgh, Fintry and Yetholm in the Borders, will take place in the village's McLaren Hall over three nights March 25-27.

Nine clubs will present their plays over the three nights, and adjudicator Tom Doherty from Ireland has the difficult task of selecting the top two plays to go on to the Scottish Finals in Inverness In May.

Festival Committee Chairman is Killin Drama Club stalwart Gordon Hibbert, who through the luck of the draw has found himself opening the festival on the first night with Killin's "The Evergreens", said: "It's a tremendous honour to be asked by SCDA to host the festival, and we've been busy planning this for the last twelve months. We have worked hard to make it the "Friendly Festival", so clubs coming to the festival are sure of a warm Perthshire welcome.

"The village has really got behind the event, and hotels and b&bs are reporting a brisk trade in bookings. We just hope there are enough beds to go round over the three nights!

"It's a marvellous opportunity to showcase Killin and the surrounding area. Over seven hundred people will be coming to the village for the evening theatre, and during the day they'll be encouraged to see the local sights. It should be a real boost for tourism in the area and, hopefully, having had a good time, they'll come back for a longer stay in the future."