Students and staff from The English Martyrs School and Sixth Form College are celebrating the success of their latest musical performance of ‘Oliver!’.

Oliver, played by Year 7 student, Tilly Duffield, is a timeless classic based on the Charles Dickens novel Oliver Twist about a young orphan boy who dared to ask for more.

Performed to nearly eight hundred spectators over a three-night run at Hartlepool Town Hall Theatre, the cast and crew put on a production that left audiences full of praise for the young talent on show with many messages of support being left on the school’s social media channels.

The annual musical at English Martyrs is a long-served tradition of the school and thousands of students have trodden the boards in various musicals across the past fifty years.

Musical Director and Choreographer, Mrs Charlotte Stirk said: “Oliver is an all-time classic musical packed with great songs.”

“The cast worked unbelievably hard, rehearsing at least three times a week to be ready for the performances and I couldn’t be prouder of them all.”

Since the move to their new building in September 2019, the school made the decision to move their musical to a professional theatre.

Mr Steve Hope, a long-time servant of the show said: “Giving the students the opportunity to perform in a professional theatre is fantastic.”

“It allows us to have a larger cast which opens up the door for more students to be involved in the production.”

Oliver! is the first production from EMS since the success of Sister Act in February 2020, a week before the pandemic, which meant this was the first musical for a large number of the cast.

Mrs Sara Crawshaw, Headteacher at the large secondary school and sixth form college, said: “This was my first experience of the musicals at EMS and it was far beyond all expectations”

“It gave me such pride to see all the students performing together and seeing our younger students learning from the experience of our Sixth Form students.”

“To create a show of that standard in just 8 weeks is incredible and I thank everyone who was involved in making our production a such a huge success.”

There are lots of images in the Gallery