The John Applin Award
John Applin was a member of KVODS for over 30 years. He took over Chairmanship from Tony Hewitt-Hulin in 1976 and continued in this position until 1999 whereupon he was appointed Vice President – a position he continued in until his untimely death in March 2000. He was very much a Company man, and thought everyone had a role to play on stage, however small or inconspicuous a part they had from a one-liner cameo, to a member of the chorus.
Indeed he often judged the quality of a show on how well the smaller roles and chorus ensemble performed. He himself undertook a number of these smaller ‘bit parts’ with great relish. To this end, his wife Rose (one of our Vice Presidents) approved KVODS decisions to implement an award that would capture something of John’s views of shows, and would celebrate some of the work on view in these smaller cameo and chorus roles.
2000 Aidan Godwin as a suit of armour in ‘Me & My Girl’
2001 Helen Strachan as a plant puppeteer in ‘Little Shop of Horrors’
2002 Clive Martin for his rubbish bin percussion work in ‘Some Like It Hot’
2003 Roland Hill for his work in the ‘Mikado’ chorus
2004 Nick Wale for his multiple crowd personalities in ‘Oklahoma’
2005 Francis Richardson for her typing pool skills in ‘Chess’
2006 Roy Hill for his ability to steal the show without having any lines, as the gendarme and waiter in ‘The Boyfriend’
2007 Sonia De Monte for her work as Poole the Housekeeper in ‘Jekyll & Hyde’
2008 Russell Townley for his high jumps, high jinks & high good humour in ‘The Pajama Game’
2009 Philippa Stone for her wonderful facial expressions as a policeman in ‘The Pirates of Penzance’
