Lots of trophies for all the winners of the competition

We attended the final of the Interschool Radio Drama Competition at the Hong Kong Baptist University on Saturday May 9.

There were 16 teams of finalists in 3 age groups: primary; junior secondary; and senior secondary. The age ranges were from 10 to 14 years old and 13 different schools were represented in this final stage.

The MCs for the competition, who are both drama teachers

The contestants performed their radio plays live in front of the audience and the judging panel. The judging panel consisted of:

Mr. William Yip, Founder & Artistic Director, Theatre Noir
Ms. Alice van Kapel, General Manager, EXCEL, Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts
Mr. Raymond Li, Head of Business Development, China & North Asia, BBC World Service
Ms. Alison Konieczny, Editor, BBC Learning English, China Team
Ms. Feifei Feng, Coordinator, BBC Learning English, China Team

Raymond Li of the BBC and Mrs. Alice van Kapel from the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts announce the winners

The judging criteria included use of English, acting and voice skills, sound effects, script writing and originality and creativity.

We were all impressed by the enthusiasm, the wonderful performances and the original scripts. The plays were very entertaining and tackled serious issues such as the environment, love and racism. There were plenty of laughs too with characters such as aliens and talking cats.

Click here for some photos of the plays being performed.

There were several awards within each group: the bronze, silver and gold for the best plays, outstanding script, outstanding sound effects, outstanding actress, outstanding actor and most popular performance.

The gold winners from each category were Yuen Long Government Primary School in the Primary Section, St Stephen's Girls' College in the Junior Secondary Section and Maryknoll Convent School in the Senior Secondary Section.

For a full list of the winners click here.*

Alison Konieczny and Feifei Feng from the BBC with some of the winners. They won a trophy, a dictionary, a certificate and a cash prize

We at the BBC enjoyed the performances and thought that the standard of all of the teams was very high. Radio drama is an excellent way to practise English speaking and writing as it is fun, entertaining and gives students an outlet for creativity.

You can see more photos of competition winners here with the judges (Raymond Li, Alison Konieczny and Feifei Feng from the BBC; Mrs Alice van Kapel from the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts; Ms Elsa Tsang from Smart Education; and William Yip from Theatre Noir).

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