Oscars for Suffolk

TV personality Helen McDermott is backing a new scheme to award Oscars to the amateur stars of stage in east Suffolk.She has agreed to present the awards on the night, which aims to not only honour local actors and actresses, but raise cash for six charities – including the Evening Star-backed appeal for a memorial to murdered teenager Vicky Hall.

By Richard Cornwell

TV personality, Helen McDermott, is backing a new scheme to award Oscars to the amateur stars of stage in east Suffolk.

She will present the awards on the night, which aims to not only honour local actors and actresses, but raise cash for six charities – including the Evening Star-backed appeal for a memorial to murdered teenager, Vicky Hall.

Helen met the organisers at a special briefing at the Belstead Brook Hotel in Ipswich.

She was delighted to be asked to be a patron of the awards, which she felt were an excellent idea to reward those often unsung amateur players who give so much of their time and so much enjoyment in their performances.

The East Suffolk Theatre Amateur Awards will take place at the Belstead Brook on March 28 next year, the same weekend as the Oscars event in America.

A panel of judges is visiting various theatrical performances and so far they have seen Springfield Follies' Summertime Variety Show, The Angel Players' Oliver, Rushmere Players in Arcadia, The Deben Players' Out of Order, Appeal Theatre Group in Oklahoma, Team Act's Oliver, Ipswich Academy of Art's Love's Labour's Lost, Gallery Players in Flora The Red Menace, and Felixstowe Musical Theatre in Annie Get Your Gun.

They will also be judging FADOS, Stage Door, Trimley Saints Players, Ipswich Operatic, and others in the months ahead.

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www.estaa.co.uk