Drama at CLFS Since 2000

h

The Drama Department at CLFS is becoming a 'seed-bed' for future actors and technicians in 'British Theatre',with no fewer than 12 students gaining places in professional training in the last seven years; with Andrew Garfield who left six years ago leading the field.

Following his training at the Central School of Speech and Drama, Andrew won 'Outstanding Newcomer' in both 'The Evening Standard Drama Awards' and in 'The Critics' Circle' Awards in 2007. These awards were given for outstanding performances in Jonothon Harvey's 'A Beautiful Thing' in the West End and at the Royal National Theatre in 'Burn/Chatroom'and 'The Overwhelming' directed by Max Stafford Clark.

Andrew, now a BAFTA winner as 'Best Actor' for his work in the Channel 4 film, 'Boy 'A' has recently starred in the Channel Four production of 'Red Riding'. He is now filming with Kiera Knightly in 'Never Let Me Go' and was at the Cannes Film Festival recently for the launch of Terry Gilliam's new film, 'The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus', which is up for the coveted 'Palm d'Or.

Since 2000 the school has had seven critically acclaimed performances at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival : in  2003 the school recieved a Fringe Award for their sell out performance of 'Like Water For Chocolate'.

In 2004 we took the production 'Warrior'  by Shirley Gee  to Edinburgh and received high critical praise for the show, including a "Five Star" review in The Scotsman.

Since then, we have returned to the Festival with the exciting 5* production of  'Paula's Children' in 2005 and latterly the critically acclaimed production of The Lonely Sea and the Sky' in 2006.  

We also almost  achieved 'Sold Out'  status for our 2008 production  of 'The Withering', our adaptation of the Thomas Hardy short story, ''The Withered Arm' in Edinburgh 2008; a case of so near yet so far!