The Festival of One Act Plays drew to a close last weekend, after four days of theatre, comedy and drama that showed that the island is blessed with acting talent.

With the festival split into two sections, for adults and youth theatre groups, there was plenty of variation on offer, with plays venturing from kitchen sink dramas to abstract musical theatre and war time action, all performed at the Erin Arts Centre under the watchful eye of adjudicator Jennifer Scott-Reid.

There was also a variety of awards on offer, with The Service Players theatre group winning the adults’ section with a performance of ’Is This Seat Taken?’, which also saw Beth Davies and Howard Caine awarded the prize for best supporting actress and actor and Lindsey Quayle named best director of the festival.

Tom Cain was awarded the prize for best actor for his role in ’Time for The Truth’ while Rachel McWhinnie took the best actress accolade for her role in ’Waiting’.

The Broadway Youth Theatre company swept the board in the youth category, winning best youth play for their production of ’RIP Mr Shakespeare’, a surreal take on the last days of the famous bard, which was described as a joy to watch. Joseph Long was named as best actor and Kirsty Moore as best actress.

Michael Goodman, the festival co-ordinator, said that he was delighted at the talent on show during the festival, and that one show in particular especially caught the eye.

’The stand out play, for both myself and the adjudicator was RIP Mr Shakespeare,’ said Michael. ’It was fantastic, colourful and eye catching, and everyone in the young cast did everything right. The adjudicator said it was one of the best pieces of performance she had ever seen.

’We expected a lot of enthusiasm from the youth section, and we were treated to some quite different plays,’ she said.

’One was very minimalist in its set design, and the Snow Dragon had very ambitious scenery, for which they won a prize.

’In the adults’ section we were privileged this year to have two brand new plays written by Lisa Creighton, who is a local playwright. They were so inventive and had some excellent imaginative writing in them. Overall the festival went exceedingly well. All the plays were all great, with some wonderful quality acting.’

The One Act Festival of Plays was organised by the Manx Amateur Dramatic Federation, supported by the Isle of Man Arts Council.