THESE budding young actors have taken home three prestigious accolades from the North London Festival of Music Speech and Drama.

Three pieces were entered into the competition and the students, who are on the BTEC performing arts programme at their school, Queen Ethelburga’s Collegiate (QE), took the top spot in the Group Acting Category for 16-18 year olds, and first and second place in the 16-18 Monologue competition.

The five actors involved, Kate S, Grace Q, Isobel B, Katrianna T and Holly R, played a variety of characters across the piece to brilliantly communicate the funny, yet important commentary on society.

Hosted online for 2021, the festival, which was founded in 1920, is open to people living or studying in the UK across the Performing Arts.

In the Group Acting category for 16-18 year olds, and a company of 5-8 actors, a piece from a play called ‘When they go Low’ was entered. One of the BTEC Performing Arts students – Sarah D, directed the piece.

The piece explored feminism, equality, social media and mental health and balances comedy and hard-hitting messages.

Grace said: "It was a great opportunity to virtually take part in this festival - it's amazing that we were still able to participate in this competition despite the lockdown rules. I'm very pleased to have won the Drama Acted Monologue event as well as winning the Drama Group Acted Scene event with some of my classmates. can't wait to take part in the next North London Festival."

Sarah said: "It was an amazing chance to showcase what I can do as a young actor. It’s very fortunate that I have been able to take part in the festival despite the Covid-19 pandemic. I am very pleased that my directed performance of a scene from When They Go Low won the Drama Group Acted Scene event , I am also very happy with receiving second place for the Drama Acted Monologue event. I look forward to taking part in more festivals in future."

Justine Langford, creative director of the King’s Theatre at Queen Ethelburga’s Collegiate, said: "This is another fantastic achievement for our BTEC Performing Arts students. All 3 pieces that we entered into the festival received Distinction grades and I am very proud of the entire group. They deserve the recognition and have worked tirelessly to keep all of their performance skills under constant development even during the challenges of lockdown."