We are thrilled to welcome SJ NEWENHAM and HELEN WATTS as our 2025 adjudicators.
 
SJ NEWENHAM- Friday 7th February
 

Sara-Jane (known as SJ) trained at the Guildhall school of Music and Drama where she was awarded her LGSM (Speech and Drama). She subsequently added a BA (Hons) in English and Drama and then completed her teaching PGCE qualification.

SJ has taught in a variety of schools, spending 15 years latterly as the Head of Drama and Theatre Studies at Talbot Heath School in Bournemouth. She has successfully prepared numerous students for GCSE and A level drama examinations, resulting in sustained high grades and a student who secured the highest mark at A level in the country.

Her passion throughout her teaching career has been directing a wide range of school productions: Musicals (The Sound of Music, Me and My Girl, Grease, South Pacific, Blood Brothers) Dramas (Kindertransport, Psychosis 4:48, Night Mother, Agnes of God) and Classical Plays ( Much Ado About Nothing, The Winter’s Tale, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, The House of Bernada Alba).

Now having retired from full time teaching SJ has been spreading her wings and is singing with the Salisbury Musical Society and is currently in rehearsals for Haydn’s: The Creation. SJ is also getting to grips with the foibles of the ukulele!

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HELEN WATTS- Saturday 8th February

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Helen is a writer, director and acting teacher. From 2006-2021 she was co-artistic director at The Dorset Corset Theatre Company, touring the southwest with adaptations for stage. As a writer, adaptations include Persuasion, Far From The Madding Crowd, Northanger Abbey, Under The Greenwood Tree, Frankenstein: The Year Without A Summer and A Christmas Carol. Musical theatre commissions include The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow (National Youth Music Theatre) Mrs Beeton Says… (Bristol Old Vic Theatre School) and Lysistrata (Royal Central School of Speech and Drama). Directing credits include: Cosi Fan Tutte (Shelley Theatre), Stone Cold Murder (Trowbridge Town Hall) Persuasion, Daisy Pulls it Off, Mary Shelley (Arts University Bournemouth) and Love is Not a Science (Royal Central School of Speech and Drama).

Helen’s work is published and licensed by Samuel French and she is currently developing several projects for screen with Little Studio Films in Los Angeles.

2024- Peter Courtenay and Kim Gilbert
 
2023- Judi  Walton
 
2022- Heidi Pyburn