"Gedling's Got Talent" created by Flying High CIC

Bonington Theatre.

It was my great pleasure to have been invited to be a judge for the first Gedling's Got Talent, held at Bonington Theatre. 

My first experience as a talent show judge was as pleasurable as it was difficult to decide on the eventual top three; which is why myself and the three other judges, Loreto Murray - Voice Coach/Lecturer in Voice/Actor/Theatre Practitioner, Ian Smith - Acting Coach and former Director of The Television Workshop and Hayley Corah - Producer at Inspire Youth Arts/Dance Practitioner broke all the rules and asked for a joint third place as it was so difficult to decide who should be in third place and who would miss out by the slightest of margins.

There were twenty seven entrants to the competition, who were then whittled down to the final eighteen who we saw on Saturday night in the finals, with the youngest competitor being just eight years old. As judges, we were asked to look particularly for performance presence, theatricality, creativity, engagement, connection and communication with the audience in addition to the skills and technique required for each particular genre and act. The competitors did not make this an easy job for any of us judges.

The Deputy Mayor, Cllr Robinson-Payne compered the show with Gracie Shelley, a member of the Flying High Young Company and they presented the prizes and certificates to the acts. Gracie and Cllr Robinson-Payne made a really nice double act, occasionally bouncing off each other, creating an easy going atmosphere between the carious acts and making sure that the audience gave appreciation to the acts as they came and left the stage.

The first prize was a trophy and £150, the second was £100 and the third was £50 - as we had decided to create a joint third place, the prize money was split between the two acts. All participants received a certificate. The money had been donated by a sponsor.

So who were the acts who had us judges arm wrestling and pulling hair out in our decision making?

Opening the show was Freddie Vokes, a young man who made the audience warm to him immediately with his friendly opening chat before sitting down at the Steinway to play and sing "Heart Of stone" from the musical "Six". You could feel the passion that Freddie has for what he does and I especially liked the way that he dressed for the competition, which suited his age and the seriousness of the competition.

Up next was Hattie Jagiello-Marks who performed dance/acro to "A Million Dreams". You could tell how much Hattie loves this particular field of the arts because it showed in her performance. With all the dance acts I wanted longer spots for them so that we could see more as the tracks that they performed to were edited.

Keira-Rose Harris certainly gave us the "aahh" factor being the youngest competitor, and also sang one of my favourite songs from the musical "Annie", "Maybe". Keira-Rose has a lovely voice which suited the song perfectly, bringing the cute factor to this competition.

Tyen and Romeon Tailor-Bird performed a scene called "The Goblin On A String", written by David Kenzie. This isn't a piece that I knew so immediately paid even closer attention. These brothers straight away won me over by their characterisation of the two characters and were great fun to watch. I can see this pair performing in plays going forward and what I also loved was the obvious chemistry, plus the fact that when it looked like one of the brothers stumbled over one of the lines, the other gently prompted his sibling. Great fun, a lovely age appropriate comedy piece which I loved.

Amelia James was our second dance act, performing to "Start Again" by Birdy. A really controlled and beautiful piece, again leaving me wanting to see more.

Delilah Fyles-Carr was up next singing "Quiet" from "Matilda The Musical". Delilah straight away looked the part in school blazer. There was good characterization and showed a nice range in her voice. Delilah also has a really expressive face which will serve her well if she wants to go into musical theatre.

Evie Markowski performed a dance/acro to a stripped back version of another one of my favourite songs, "Titanium", Evie has really good core strength, making this performance very easy to watch as she seemed to float and glide across the stage, as light as the music she was performing to.

Zoe Parfitt is a ten year old singer who sang "Into The Unknown" from "Frozen 2", and I loved that she dressed for the part which really brought her performance alive.

Studio 3 are a dance group from Mapperley who danced to music by Missy Elliot, bringing a modern feel to the stage. I especially loved the synchronicity Ignite had with this piece. An energetic close to the first part of the competition.

Opening the second part were a duo called Hunny Beez who were a folk duo who sang a song called "Soldiers Three", and bringing something very different to the competition.

Michael Franklin was up next who performed "On MY Own" from one of my favourite musical theatre shows, "Les Miserables". You could tell that Michael was nervous to start with, but as the song grew, so did Michael's confidence and he did hit that big note at the end, which I was really hoping that he would do.

Following Michael was another dancer, Daisy Spiteri who performed a dance to a song called "You Say" by Laura Daigle. Daisy really poured everything into her performance and created a piece with real feeling. Her transitions were smooth and, again, left you wanting to see more. I also liked that she was the first to acknowledge the audience at the end with a bow.

Kennedy Mason sang Demi Lovato's "Heart Attack". There were a few false starts due to an issue with the radio mic, but after these were sorted out, Kennedy managed to compose herself and give a belting rendition of the song.

Ash Byrne performed a monologue called "Erebos" which ash had written, This showed a really good ability for acting which was nicely paced and was very comical in content. It's difficult to find monologues that are age appropriate for a younger performer, which is probably why Ash decided to pen this one. i really enjoyed this as it was different.

Lauren Osborne intrigued me as she performed as her alter ego, Orla Mod and performed and sang Lady Gaga's "Paparazzi". Now if you're going to do a song by one of the most unique singers ever, you have to be as unique as the original, if not more. Lauren/Orla gave us a very quirky, confident and memorable performance. i definitely won't forget this in a hurry.

Owen Brindley is a signer who signed to Ed Sheeran's song "Supermarket Flowers". When he signs he performs with his whole body, but I was slightly distracted by the video that was projected behind him, which drew your eyes away from his performance.

Aether Ward sang "Maybe This Time" from the musical "Cabaret". This is a big old number to take on and I think that Aether suffered a little from nerves; who wouldn't after seeing the talent that had gone before? But she got there in the end.

Closing the show was Take 5 Theatre School Of Dancing from Bulwell. They performed a piece called "Red Right Hand", which as fans of "Peaky Blinders" will know is the theme to the show. I had seen this performed on one of the award shows on the television a while back and hoped that this group matched what I had seen. They certainly did, and became my favourite act of the night, both vocally and choreographically. There was a superb section based around a table with chairs which reminded me of the cup choreography from "Pitch Perfect" which in itself was a perfectly executed piece of entertainment, matching the moody dancing and bluesy singing. I loved this act.

Anyway, after a long deliberation and with much toing and froing of all of our favourites, we decided on the winning acts.

1^st place was Daisy Spiteri.

2^nd place was Take 5 Theatre School Of Dance.

Joint 3^rd place was Freddie Vokes and Owen Brindley.

Thanks must also be given to the smooth stage crew and sound and light operatives.

A wonderful evening of entertainment with such a lot of talent on display and, hopefully,  a great deal of fund raising for Flying High CIC to enable them to travel up to the Edinburgh Fringe to allow them to perform up there, enabling them to show the talent that Nottingham has over the border.

I certainly made a few more friends on Saturday night and I would like to thank Carrie Bird and everyone at Flying High for the drinks and sandwiches on the evening, and for asking me to be a judge; hopefully my Simon Cowell head did not show.