The Society, in furtherance of its aims to support study related to the life and works of Dorothy L Sayers, currently makes two renewable annual awards, one for music, and another for theatre, intended to be held by young people at the beginning of their careers.
This award was instituted in 2005. The current holder is Helena Buckie, who is using her award to support her ongoing studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
Helena first came to the attention of the Society in 2003, when she played the violin for us in a presentation at Bluntisham entitled “Excited about the Bells”. She has since performed regularly at Society events.
She is a member of the National Children’s Orchestra.
In 2005 she took up the trumpet, and has rapidly gained confidence and expertise. In July 2007 she took part in the première performance of He is Armoured Without by Peter Wiegold at the BBC Proms in the Royal Albert Hall. She has been greatly complimented by her tutors, and has recently been advised to obtain a better instrument to match her skills!
This award was instituted in 2006, in conjunction with
Theatre Centre.
The current holder is Sam Donovan.
The holder of the Award for 2006-2007 was Marcy Oni.
Theatre Centre was founded in 1953 by Brian Way. Dorothy L Sayers became involved at a very early stage after seeing “an astonishingly good potted production” of her radio series The Man Born to be King. She immediately joined the Management Committee and donated £200. She wrote to her friend Norah Lambourne: “I have gone into management in a small way!!…Brian Way is quite a remarkable producer…and he and Margaret Faulkes are…keen and businesslike. They started the whole show on twopence ha’penny of their own…..but they have just discovered that twopence ha’penny won’t really run productions and pay rent…so thinking they were worth helping, I said I would finance them for a year and see how they got on. The poor dears quite goggled with pleasure and surprise and I felt a blooming benefactor.”
Sam trained at ALRA. He was a cast member of Walking on Water by Sarah Woods, produced by Theatre Centre in spring 2007. He is currently directing Our Boys, a production of Jonathan Lewis that is being showcased at the Criterion Theatre at the end of November.
The award was presented to Sam by Edward Petherbridge in a ceremony at the
Unicorn Theatre in October 2007, where these photos were taken. Edward is
well known to the Society as a friend and also of course as the player of Lord
Peter Wimsey in the BBC films of the Wimsey-Vane books.
Copyright © The Dorothy L Sayers Society.
Registered Charity Number 272120