Every teacher in the country has a story concerning the class comic, but staff at Dunoon Grammar School can now boast about the entire class of comics who took the Edinburgh Fringe Festival by storm.
Fifteen pupils from the school sacrificed the final day of their summer holidays to attend a comedy workshop at the amazing BBC venue at the Edinburgh Festival on Tuesday, 14 August.
On arrival, the pupils were ushered to reserved seating in an incredible inflatable radio studio to witness the MacAuley & Co show being broadcast live on Radio Scotland. The show was a fabulous mix of stand-up routines, chat and musical performances from some of the Fringe’s biggest names including Sean Hughes, Jarred Christmas, Des Bishop, The Lumberjacks, Richard Herring and Henning When.
It was then the turn of the DGS pupils to do their stuff!
Working with Jo, Jonny and Craig from the wonderful BBC LAB team, pupils wrote and presented a diverse range of hilarious comedy acts including stand-up routines, slapstick sketches, Highland dance crash courses and agony aunt consultations. Pupils took it in turns to film each performance, even persuading comedy legend Rhod Gilbert to be part of their show!
In between performing and filming, pupils played star spotting, with BBC Radio 1 DJs Scott Mills and Greig James being some of the famous faces on show. The pupils also nearly took music superstar Example home to Dunoon on the bus with them!
S6 pupil Iona Cairns who performed at the event commented:
“Being part of this comedy event at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe was a great experience. The day flew by! There was great advice from the BBC LAB team. It was informative but also really good fun.”
Mr Shaw, Head Teacher at Dunoon Grammar added:
“I would like to thank the BBC for inviting our young people to be involved and for sharing many skills with them. The workshop proved to be a very successful forum, allowing pupils to develop creative capacity as well as technical skills in the use of video. I would also like to thank the pupils involved for once again showcasing their tremendous talent in such a high profile event.”
