Shropshire Star

WATCH: Expectations high for Shrewsbury School at Edinburgh Fringe

School pupils are looking forward to entertaining audiences at the world's biggest arts festival next week with performances of their new musical Great Expectations.

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The musical is the latest in a long list of home-grown Shrewsbury School musicals, and rehearsals are being held for a 90-minute version that will be performed every day at Edinburgh Fringe Festival from Sunday to August 21.

Music has been written by Shrewsbury's director of music John Moore with lyrics by former senior master Peter Fanning.

It has been directed by the school's director of drama Helen Brown, featuring a talented young cast and band of musicians.

After a series of sell-out performances in the Ashton Theatre in November last year, the original cast and crew has been spending a busy week rehearsing at the school.

Shrewsbury School has performed regularly at the Edinburgh Fringe for more than 20 years and in 2010 the school won a coveted Fringe First Award.

The school's latest musical is based on the book by Charles Dickens and tells the story of Pip, a young orphan who rescues a convict on the Essex marches and thereby changes his life for ever.

Pip is played as a young boy by Toby Pattinson and as an adult by Luke Lloyd-Jones.

His journey to adulthood introduces him to an array of extraordinary characters from the tragic Miss Havisham – played by Emily Skelton, who has recently won an Arts Scholarship to Durham University, her beautiful ward Estella who is played as a young girl by Robin Huber and as an adult by Antonia Wordie, the jovial blacksmith Joe who is played by Rory Dootson and the sinister Jaggers played by Rob Shone. Performances will take place daily at 12.35pm at C venue 34 on Chambers Street.

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