The Declamations competition concluded this week – an annual highlight for many Radleians.
Declamations offer an opportunity for students to choose a piece of writing that is meaningful and powerful to them, as well as the chance to share that with the community. The boys work incredibly hard to master an extract from a book, play, poem, or film before they ‘declaim’ it across numerous rounds of adjudication.
The winners in each year group, and the monologues they performed, were:
Shell
1st: Jasper (H) – extract from Hamlet by Shakespeare
2nd: Bertie (F) – extract from Two by Jim Cartwright
3rd: Robbie (D) – Lepanto by GK Chesterton
Remove
1st: Rupert (B) – extract from Wall Street by Oliver Stone
2nd: Jamie (B) – extract from The Iliad, Pope’s translation of Homer
3rd: Will (K) – Strange Meeting by Wilfred Owen
Fifth
1st: Kumar (F) – Harlequin and Ticktockman by Harlan Ellison
2nd: Steve (H) – What The Thunder Said by TS Eliot
3rd: Lex (L) – The Unreturning by Anna Jordan
6.1
1st: George (B) – extract from Red by John Logan
2nd: DingDing (D) – How I Met My Wife by Jack Winter
3rd: Adam (H) – extract from White People by JT Rogers
6.2
1st: Kit (C) – extract from The Satsuma Complex by Bob Mortimer
2nd: Louis (D) – extract from Succession by Jesse Armstrong
3rd: Mikolaj (G) – extract from Daddy by Sylvia Plath
The fifteen commended boys, along with the Warden’s personal picks (Finlay, Freddy and James, all Vs), performed their monologues in the Declamations Reprise in Coffee Shop on Wednesday evening. The Victor Ludorum (Overall Winner) was, for the second year running, Kumar of F Social – who was presented with the Elizabeth Madgen Casket by the Warden.
Congratulations to all involved, and a special thank you to our adjudicator this year, former E Social Tutor, Master in Charge of Cricket and all-round Radley legend, John Beasley. The Warden has declared the 2025 Declamations ‘the best of the ten years I’ve been here’.
