The Lower Marrowby Allotment Association has voted to replace its annual vegetable show with what it is calling a reaction show, in which members are filmed while being told which vegetables won.

The show, held every August since the association was founded, previously involved trestle tables in the village hall and a raffle. This year the vegetables were judged in private on the Sunday morning. The results were sealed in envelopes. Growers were then summoned one at a time to the hall door, where a committee member opened the envelope in front of them and a camcorder.

Mr Denys Craddock, who has grown onions on plot four for longer than the association has kept minutes, described the moment he learned his shallots had taken second place.

"I said 'oh' and stepped back a bit," he said. "They asked me to do it again with more feeling. I did it again with more feeling. Then they asked for a third one where I look left."

The footage is being released in instalments on the association's noticeboard, on a loop played from a laptop chained to the bench outside the post office. The runner-bean result is being held back for a week, which the committee describes as a scheduling decision.

The committee's position

Mrs Patricia Vane, the association's chair, said the change had not been made lightly.

"People don't want to look at a table of carrots any more," she said. "They want to see a face when a carrot happens to that face. That's what holds attention now. The carrots are the same carrots. The difference is the faces."

Mrs Vane confirmed that prize money remains unchanged, but that it is now handed over off camera, because the handover was described by early viewers as slow.

Two members have resigned. Mr Arthur Beal, one of them, said he had grown a marrow for the eating of it and the winning of a rosette, and had not grown it to have his face stored. He was told the faces are stored on a memory card kept in the association's safe.

What happens next

Next year's schedule has been published. Categories remain as before, with the addition of a prize for Best Reaction, judged by the committee from the footage. Members may not react to winning Best Reaction until a camera is present, and have been asked to save something back for the lens.

The association has also applied for the use of the church hall, which has better light.