Wimbledon's Polka Theatre for Children was in the spotlight last week when it picked up a coveted e-commerce award.

The theatre won for its part in WebPlay a project combining theatre with the internet and beat off more than 250 other entries in the voluntary and community category.

Having already won £2,000 in the London finals, the theatre went on to receive a further £8,000 in the national showdown last Wednesday.

The ceremony, at The Grosvenor House Hotel in central London, was attended by newly-appointed minister for e-commerce Stephen Timms, who made the presentation.

Sydney Thornbury and Bryony Lawrence represented the theatre at the event and collected the award.

Before praising the theatre for "highlighting what can be achieved through information and communication technologies", Mr Timms said: "My congratulations to The Polka Theatre and all the other winners."

The WebPlay scheme, which aims to introduce children to theatre through the internet, is now in its second year

The cross-channel project, with twinned schools from London and Los Angeles, lets youngsters watch all aspects of a production while making their own suggestions.

After watching the final production the pupils write and produce their own plays based on what they have learned from the project. They then record them and post them on a secure website where they can be watched by their counterparts abroad.

This year the project involved more than 1,000 children from 34 Year Four classes.

Talking about his hopes for next year's event, Polka Theatre representative Rasheed Rahman said he hoped it would be "bigger and better".

The experiment was the brainchild of Ms Thornbury, who developed the idea with the help of the Polka Theatre, Southwark Education Business Alliance, The Merton Education Business Partnership, the Los Angeles Unified School District's Visual and Performing Arts Unit and The Oracle Corporation.

July 12, 2002 10:30