Recitation Competition
Every Carthusian studying English submitted an entry for the department’s Recitation Competition and the five hundred or so entrants were eventually whittled down to twenty-five finalists. These gave their performances in Hall in front of a packed house and the adjudicator, Dr Ralph Townsend, Headmaster of Winchester. There was a diverse mixture of poetry, prose and drama performed, and the audience experienced a range of emotions listening at one moment to the brilliant comedy of Terry Pratchett, the next to the solemn warning of Primo Levi. The standard has never seemed this high and, at times, was breathtaking.
David Torkington (P) won the Junior Competition with his sensitive and moving monologue from Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull. Lucy Bowker’s (D) passionate delivery of Not What Was Meant by Bertolt Brecht and Angus Walker’s (B) poignant movement through Edwin Muir’s The Horses secured them the runner-up positions in the Senior Competition. The overall winner was Josh Spector (H) who declaimed Alfred Noyes’s classic narrative poem The Highwayman with precision and panache! Congratulations to everyone involved on a memorable evening.