EDITORIAL COVERAGE

Dance school pupils are a hit at ceremony
By Tom Gordon

Publication Date: 17.11.06

A SURPRISE performance by the Dance School of Scotland proved the entertainment hit of the night at The Herald Diageo Politician of the Year Awards.

More than 20 senior pupils from the school's musical theatre course performed songs from West End musicals, including Cabaret, The Lion King, and Guys and Dolls, eloquently conveying the message that Scotland's future lies with its talented youth.

Set up at Knightswood Secondary in Glasgow in 1983 with council and government backing, the Dance Schools of Scotland is the country's only specialist academy for dance. Helped by the creation in 1998 of a musical theatre course for S5 and S6 pupils, it is now nationally and internationally recognised. Its young performers recently won acclaim for a five-show run of the cult musical Bat Boy at Glasgow's Citizens Theatre.

Earlier, guests in black ties and evening gowns arrived at the Prestonfield Hotel in Edinburgh along an avenue of blazing torches, past a grove of trees sparkling with fairy lights. Greeting them was a £120,000 Formula One show car emblazoned with the Johnnie Walker sponsorship seen on Team McLaren. It was flown in from Japan yesterday en route to Guadaloupe.

In the background the hotel's facade was spotlit in the event's colours of blue and red. Guests were piped in by pipe major Paul Selwood, Prestonfield House piper.

Before the awards ceremony proper began, the 450 guests were treated to a traditionally irreverent review of the political year in pictures and song.

This year, it featured Charles Kennedy resigning as leader of the Liberal Democrats to the strains of UB40's Red Red Wine, and ample footage of Tommy Sheridan's sensational defamation trial and subsequent fall-out with former colleagues.

There was also a moving tribute to the late SNP MSP Margaret Ewing, who died in March aged 60 after a long fight against cancer.

The eighth Herald Politician of the Year Awards since devolution, last night's ceremony was also the third sponsored by Diageo.

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