Top Hat 2024 Winner!
This summer we welcomed four more acts to perform in our Top Hat competition at Hat Fair Outdoor Arts festival in Winchester and it’s safe to say we were blown away!
2024 Top Hat Acts
The acts performed on St. John’s Lawn – the peaceful gardens of St John’s Almshouses - on the Saturday of the festival and the shows were:
The Coney Island Pirate Show
The Coney Island Theatre Company’s Laurel and Hardy style sketch saw the two actors play multiple roles from the great Captain Bickle to Goblin Fungus.
Life with a Messy Head
Tomfoolery Productions’ one-man show was an autobiographical piece exploring the life of someone with ADHD and the pressures placed upon them.
Shrewish Women
Truth be Told Theatre Company were inspired by The Taming of the Shrew to highlight the impossible standards set by men and the women who reject them
Leaf by Leaf
The Olive Branch Theatre Company invited the audience to play childhood games with them whilst exploring growing up and letting go of the past.
The winner is...
Shrewish Women – a live art installation, the performers dressed in Victorian clothing and sang and moved while quoting the Shakespeare classic.
The judges chose Truth be Told Company as they seemed ‘ready to step up to new challenges’.
Now the company – Edna Doust, Mabee Dukuly, Mari Garmo Hovden, Trinity Niessen and Courtenay Sutton – will work on a new piece to perform at the next Hat Fair festival.
Mari said: ‘It was wonderful to perform, to see the audience moved and shocked by Shakespeare’s way of depicting a woman like Katharina Minola. It was, of course, an honour to be chosen as the winners, but the real joy was feeling like we managed to share this story in an impactful way.’
Courtenay added: ‘We wanted to symbolize strength and unity between women and we have been lucky enough to have such a great bond between us that we feel confident to continue sharing that message in future projects.’
Top Hat 2024 Judges
The judging panel was made up of industry professionals including spoken word artist Majid Dhana, performance artist Victoria Hancock, and dramaturg and writer Richard Hurford, who said: ‘Judging Top Hat 2024 was a fascinating insight into how a new generation of theatre makers are experimenting with the performing arts to explore and challenge the realities of their world.
‘All four companies presented thoughtful and provocative pieces, which pushed boundaries but never lost sight of the need to engage their audience with humour, movement, music or design.
‘Truth Be Told Theatre Company displayed such a level of sophisticated integration of all their elements and skills that it was clear they're ready to step up to new challenges in their work so we were delighted to declare them the Top Hat 2024 winner.’
University involvement
The Top Hat competition is a chance for University of Winchester students to compete to return to the festival the following year as an official act. This year the acts devised their shows as part of their BA Acting degree and received guidance to take part in the competition from the artistic director of Gobbledegook Theatre, Lorna Rees; Rhodri Mayer from DoDo Dramatics – joint winners of the 2021 competition; and Hat Fair director, Andrew Loretto.
Senior Lecturer in Drama, Helen Grimes, said: ‘As part of our creative partnership with Play to the Crowd, we worked on creating a range of festival performances with the second year acting students. It was great to have our friends from Hat Fair work with students on making work for outside spaces and the students were inspired to develop a range of fantastic performance projects.’
The competition was compered by last year’s winner, Billy Saunders – who returned this year with a spoken word piece called The Reflection of a Shadow – seen through the eyes of an identical twin, exploring identity, expectations and self-love.
Join in
If you are a soon-to-be, current or recent student of the University of Winchester and have an idea for new work or something already created that you would like to develop and share to new audiences and industry professionals at Hat Fair, please contact us on playmakers@playtothecrowd.co.uk
