Banbury college students beating the blues

Residents of Larkrise Care Home were treated to the first performance of the drama students 45 minute show which included song, dance and scenes recreated from elderly people's memories.

Rob Chaplin, teacher of performing and production arts at Banbury College, said: "They have been researching what was popular in the 1950s and 60s. There's a couple of dances, a couple of songs, we have a game show and lots of short snippets that have come from memories from the elderly people they went to interview."

Student Luana Calado, who had four roles in the show, said: "Everyone is doing a bit of everything."

The research took place at Glebefields and the show has taken around three weeks to produce and is just one part of the students look into elderly loneliness.

Rob said: "They have also been making infomercial videos about elderly loneliness, that's the other part of the project.

Rob added: "We've been talking to the home here about people maybe having work experience here to do some drama or dance with the residents. We're also going to go to Glebefields."

Reaction to the students show was positive with resident Ralph Gilbey saying: “ Very professional, conducted themselves well and really enjoyable.“

Margaret Tilstone and Gwen Elliott said the play was "very good." and “very Sweet”, while Douglas Pidduck added: “I loved It."