Guests of Honour at this year’s Prize Giving were Old Scardeburgians Robert Hastie & Ben Taylor.
Robert Hastie is an award-winning theatre director of plays and musicals, and is Artistic Director of The Sheffield Crucible.Rob spent seven years at Scarborough College, leaving in 1995. 
He spent a year travelling with Ben and working at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, and then went to Cambridge University to study English. He then trained as an actor at RADA, and spent eight years performing in theatres around the country, including the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre. In 2011 he started directing, working first as an assistant on Much Ado About Nothing with David Tennant and Catherine Tate. He went on to be nominated for Best Newcomer by the London Evening Standard, and became Associate Director of the Donmar Warehouse in 2014, where he worked with actors including Jonathan Bailey, Tom Hiddleston and Mark Gatiss. In 2016 he was appointed Artistic Director of Sheffield Theatres, running the Crucible, Lyceum and Playhouse, where recent productions have included Life of Pi, Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, The Wizard of Oz and Miss Saigon. Sheffield was awarded UK Theatre of the Year by The Stage in 2017 and 2020, and Rob named Best Director at the UK Theatre Awards. Next year he will have two shows running in London’s West End, Operation Mincemeat and the Olivier Award-winning Standing at the Sky’s Edge.
Ben Taylor is an internationally-acclaimed TV and film director.He lives in London with his wife and two young sons and is delighted to be invited back to his old school. The son of former Lisvane headmaster Ian Taylor, Ben’s Scarborough College career took him from Reception (1982) all the way through to Sixth Form where he served as a Prefect in his final year (1995). Following a travel & adventure-filled gap year with Rob, Ben began a degree in Film & TV Studies at Staffordshire University, graduating in 1999 with a First. After moving to London, he worked his way up from runner to director in the world of music videos, producing work for the likes of Girls Aloud & McFly. Ben caught his break in TV comedy with the BAFTA-nominated sketch show ‘Cardinal Burns’ and set up and directed all episodes of Series 1-3 of BAFTA-winning sitcom ‘Catastrophe’ – both for Channel 4. More recently he was Director and Executive Producer of the Netflix global hit ‘Sex Education’ Series 1-3, earning him an International Emmy. This year he has directed the 18th century Disney adventure series ‘Renegade Nell’, written by Sally Wainwright. Ben has just completed filming on his debut feature film, JOY, written by Jack Thorne, starring Bill Nighy, James Norton and Thomas in Mackenzie.
The photos from Prize Giving can be viewed, downloaded, and shared from our Flickr account via the links below. Many thanks to photographer Richard Ponter for capturing the two special events. We hope you enjoy looking through and sharing with family and friends.
https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjB4Jux