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With theatres across the land closed because of Covid-19, QE boys revelled in a rare chance to see live drama as part of this year’s Shakespeare Schools Festival.

Year 9 Drama Club members performed an abridged version of Hamlet – and thanks to QE’s year group bubble system, their entire year were able to watch the performance in the Main School Hall.

Afterwards, Assistant Head (Pupil Involvement), Crispin Bonham-Carter, praised the cast for putting on such an engaging production: “They told the story clearly, and it was genuinely moving. Something we will all treasure.”

The boys have spent weeks preparing for the Shakespeare School Festival (SSF). Their work included a special workshop before half-term led by Brian Mullin, an Artistic Associate with the Coram Shakespeare Schools Foundation (the organisation which runs the festival) and Gavin Molloy, of RM Drama (the company which provides drama direction for the School).

In normal years, QE boys join other schools to give their abridged performances at a special SSF evening at the Arts Depot in Finchley.

This year, it had originally been planned to live-stream performances, but in the end it was decided simply to have the boys perform live at the School, with Mr Bonham-Carter filming them.

Before the performance, Mr Bonham-Carter circulated a PowerPoint presentation to help tutors explore with their groups the famous revenge tragedy set in Denmark, which in its full form is Shakespeare’s longest play. He outlined the complex plot, which revolves around Prince Hamlet and his fluctuating desire for revenge against his uncle, Claudius, who has murdered Hamlet’s father in order to seize his throne and marry Hamlet’s mother.

Mr Bonham-Carter urged the boys to consider questions exploring the key themes of the play, including grief, madness and vengeance, and the complex, multi-faceted characters.

Hamlet is one of Shakespeare’s most quoted plays, with famous quotations including:

• Neither a borrower nor a lender be
• Something is rotten in the state of Denmark
• There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
  Than are dreamt of in our philosophy
• Brevity is the soul of wit
• Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t
• To be or not to be, that is the question
• The lady protests too much, methinks
• Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest
• Goodnight, sweet prince,
  And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!

On the day of the performance, which replaced a Year 9 English lesson, Mr Bonham-Carter introduced the occasion, saying that Hamlet is a “play for us all”.

He pointed out that, with theatres nationwide currently lying empty, the audience was very lucky to be able to see actors take to the stage live.

Mr Molloy, who directed Hamlet, said the play had received a great reception from the boys. The audience clearly enjoyed the bloody final fight scene, in which the young Danish Lord, Laertes, kills Hamlet in revenge for the deaths of his father and sister, only then to die himself, having been wounded with the same poisoned sword.

The actors were given a hearty round of applause by their classmates at the end.

“I am so proud of the boys, taking on this epic story and really making it their own,” said Mr Molloy.

Pandemic or no pandemic, the show goes on at QE, with a special Shakespeare Schools Festival (SSF) workshop held to help Year 9 boys prepare for next month’s performance of Hamlet.

Rehearsals for the play, which opens with the ghost of the King of Denmark instructing his son, Hamlet, to avenge his murder, are now in full swing at the School. During the workshop, boys rehearsed the fight in the bloody final scene during which the young Danish Lord, Laertes, kills Hamlet in revenge for the deaths of his father and sister, only then to die himself, having been wounded with the same poisoned sword.

To maintain the safety of QE’s year-group bubbles, all the actors for this year’s SSF production come from Year 9, while the festival itself will also be different, with every participating school’s performance live-streamed instead of being performed in front of a theatre audience.

Crispin Bonham-Carter, QE’s Assistant Head (Pupil Involvement), who is himself a former professional actor, praised the work being done in Year 9 to stage “Shakespeare’s greatest tragedy”, while adding that weekly drama sessions are taking place in Year 7 “developing the key skills of collaboration, timing, story-telling and – most importantly – having a great deal of fun!

“It’ll take more than a national pandemic to stop QE boys’ enthusiasm for drama,” he said.

Leading the workshop were Gavin Molloy, of RM Drama (the company which provides drama direction for the School), and Brian Mullin, an Artistic Associate with the Coram Shakespeare Schools Foundation (the organisation which runs the festival).

Mr Molloy said: “I am lucky to have such a keen cast from Year 9, with a mature and ‘can-do’ way of working. They perform well together, working as an ensemble. I am very excited with what is to come.

“It’s a little different this year, as obviously we are working with some limitations: our version of Hamlet will not be performed in front of a live audience, but rather on a live video feed to the Shakespeare Schools Festival on the evening of November 20th.”

But, he said, progress to date has been strong, with all boys involved already having gained an understanding of the plot of Hamlet. Asked what the themes of the play were, the Year 9 boys instantly responded: “Revenge!”, “Murder!”, “Madness!” “Power!”

“I added to the list by saying it’s also a play about grief. A son who loses his father, and how devastating that is for him. I also tell them it’s what The Lion King is based on!” said Mr Molloy.

“We have a totally blank canvas and are working collaboratively with thoughts, ideas and production decisions. We share ideas, talk about productions we may have seen and also discuss how we will need to make a lot of character choices as we have only 30 minutes to re-tell probably the most famous story in literature, as we are working with a heavily cut-down script for the festival.

“The boys have also been having some fun learning of the double meanings of some of Shakespeare’s dialogue. I am very excited with what is to come. The play’s the thing!”

The final photo (right) shows a recent bonding exercise in the Year 7 Drama Club.

Members of the cast for QE’s forthcoming 2020 School Play enjoyed the opportunity to see a critically acclaimed London production and to meet both an actor and a stage director.

Year 8’s Girish Adapa won the group’s trip to the sold-out production of Albion at the Almeida Theatre in Islington as the prize in a Christmas quiz in The Day, an online daily newspaper for teenagers.

Albion, by Mike Bartlett, is a play is about nostalgia and national identity. It has widely been seen as a Brexit allegory.

The actor who met the QE group after the performance was Helen Schlesinger, known for her work with the Royal Shakespeare Company. In Albion, she plays a novelist who is the friend of the chief protagonist of the play, giving a performance described by the Telegraph’s theatre critic, Dominic Cavendish, as “brilliantly wafting”.

The boys asked her questions about: acting techniques; the career progression of an actor; managing rejection and stress; the relative merits of stage and screen work; working with directors and other actors. and getting into character.

The trip was organised by Assistant Head (Pupil Involvement) Crispin Bonham-Carter and Gavin Molloy, from QE’s external drama partners, RM Drama.

The boys, many of whom will be involved in this year’s School production of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde on 25th and 26th March, were also given the opportunity to meet Almeida’s Stage Manager, Linsey Hall, who answered their technical questions on how long it took to build the set, the practicalities of using real plants on the stage, and how they drained water from the grass.

Head of English Robert Hyland, who accompanied the QE pupils, along with Head of Library Services Surya Bowyer, said: “The boys thoroughly enjoyed the trip – it was a valuable experience to see a professional play of this calibre. I found the production intensely powerful: it’s a play which resonates with the ‘now’ of British society in a rich, thought-provoking, and emotionally moving way.

“I know that many of our boys were taken aback by the force of the performance, and the complexity of the message behind it,” added Mr Hyland. “It’s a really rare opportunity for them to be able to see a play with such high production values, and even rarer to be able to meet members of the cast and production team after the show. The questions asked by students were probing and reflective, both from the perspective of performance and stagecraft, and from the perspective of meaning and metaphor.”

Girish, whose quizzing skills led directly to the outing, agreed with Mr Hyland’s assessment, saying the play was “very moving”.

Boys gained an invaluable fresh insight into their GCSE set English texts when a visiting theatre company staged two plays, along with innovative interactive workshops.

The Say Two Productions company performed Romeo and Juliet – a set text for Year 11 pupils – and J B Priestley’s An Inspector Calls, which Year 10 are currently studying.

Head of English Robert Hyland said: “The majority of time in class has been spent looking closely at the linguistic and thematic features of the texts in a purely literary context. It is really important for the boys to be able to appreciate how the literary foundation of the classroom translates into the dramatic sphere of performance if they are to maximize their understanding of the texts.”

In addition to performing the plays, the accompanying workshop programme involved hot-seating – where a character in a play is questioned about his or her background, behaviour and motivation.

“Ordinarily in a performance, the audience and actors are kept separate. On this occasion the workshops led by Say Two were innovative in the way the company really encouraged students to engage in the process of understanding how the page translated to the stage, and the theatrical purpose of Priestley’s and Shakespeare’s writing,” Mr Hyland added.

Jeshvin Jesudas, of Year 10, praised the interactive way in which An Inspector Calls was shown and the hot-seating, which, he said, “helped us to understand how the characters actually felt and gave us a greater and wider understanding of the play”.

The boys were also encouraged to speak out the dialogue from various scenes and to consider the relationship between the characters and how the characters perceived themselves.

For Romeo and Juliet, an interactive staging in costume of the Capulet Ball (Act 1, Scene 5) and of the sword fight between Romeo, Mercutio and Tybalt (Act 3, Scene 1) helped show Romeo’s progression through the text, proving popular with the boys.

Sajeev Karunakaran, of Year 11, said: “It was a very enjoyable performance that expanded my knowledge of the play. I enjoyed the open discussion on the key themes of the play, and the best parts were the interactive activities like the sword-fighting.”

The staging of both plays sought to engender greater insight into the key themes. “The aim was to aid students in their understanding of the set texts as dramatic texts, in addition to simply being academic texts to be studied as literature. Students can hugely benefit in their understanding of the plays if they understand the stagecraft and can anticipate the audience reaction,” added Mr Hyland.

Afterwards, several of the boys gave their views on Say Two’s visit:

• Jai Patel, one of the Year 10 pupils who participated in the workshop for An Inspector Calls: “It was a very detailed insight into the actions and morals of the characters, showing text character development as the play progresses.”
• Umer Saad Rahman, of Year 10: “It clearly showed the development of the characters and helped to improve my understanding. It was very interesting and interactive.”
• Chakshu Chopra, of Year 10: “The performance was extremely engaging, and it portrayed many themes that we learned in class. Watching the performance helped me understand more and really brought the ideas and theories we learned to life.”
• Dylan Domb, of Year 10, enjoyed seeing the twists and turns of the narrative happening right in front of him.
• Jao-Yong Tsai, of Year 10, felt the production helped to show the recurring themes more clearly and to illustrate the deep ironies and contradicting views in the play.
• Ansh Jassra, of Year 10: “I was able to achieve a greater understanding of the interactions between the characters, which, in turn, aided deeper analysis of the stage directions.”
• Daniel Rodrigues, of Year 11, thought that the actors helped the audience further understand the plot and he enjoyed a very “immersive experience”.
• Athiyan Chandramohan, of Year 11, felt the occasion was informative, helping him understand the themes of the play much better.

QE’s actors tackled the challenging issues in one of Shakespeare’s most controversial plays head-on in their production of The Merchant of Venice.

Shakespeare Schools Festival organisers at Finchley’s Art Depot praised the abridged QE production, which involved actors from across the year groups.

And Assistant Head (Pupil Development), Crispin Bonham-Carter, in turn, lauded Gavin Molloy, from QE’s external drama partners, RM Drama: “Our excellent theatre director-in-residence updated the story with an edgy, modern, Italian urban setting, which made the anti-Semitic storyline all the more shocking and relevant. Our mixed-aged cast really rose to the occasion.”

“Rivu Chowdhury, as Shylock, found real depth and nobility in this complex and tragic role,” added Mr Bonham-Carter, who was himself a well-known professional actor before becoming a teacher.

“He was ably balanced by the cruel exuberance of the young ‘Christians’ – Antonio, played by Sathujan Manmatharajah, and Bassanio, played by Maanav Patel, were both particularly convincing young hoodlums strutting around in their black leather jackets.” All three actors are in Year 13.

“George Raynor, of Year 12, caught Portia’s humanity as well as her steely intelligence, dealing calmly with a minor wig issue in the second half…”

He highlighted “notable performances” by Paul Ofordu and Ethan Solanki (both of Year 11) as “the arrogant losers – the dancing princes of Morocco and Arragon respectively.

“The whole cast of 23 were praised by the organisers for their team-work, their physical focus and the clarity with which they spoke and understood their lines,” said Mr Bonham-Carter.

Before staging the performance, the whole QE cast took part in a workshop at the Arts Depot led by professional Shakespeare Schools Festival staff.

Mr Bonham-Carter, who took up his post at QE in September, added: “The best part of my role as head of pupil involvement is seeing our young men responding creatively under pressure. Whether being interrogated in a debate, lost on a Duke of Edinburgh hike, or performing Shakespeare in a live theatre, our boys are learning through ‘real’ experiences such as these that, with good preparation and a can-do attitude, they can do anything!”

QE were performing alongside productions from Haberdashers’ Aske’s Boys’ School, Swiss Cottage School (a special school in Camden), and La Sainte Union Catholic School.

Year 9 pupils took a trip back in time to the dark days of Shakespeare’s Macbeth at a special Enrichment Day that offered them the chance to engage dramatically and creatively with the ‘Scottish play’.

Featuring a series of interactive workshops, the day brought to life Shakespeare’s brooding and exciting tragedy, which most of Year 9 had studied – from a purely textual point of view – earlier in the year.

Head of English Robert Hyland said: “Shakespeare was not written to be studied, but to be performed; therefore, an engagement with Macbeth would be incomplete without some understanding of the stagecraft and dramatic opportunities that this approach to the text provides, away from the minutiae of language analysis.”

Pupil Mahmudur Rahman enjoyed the day and said it helped him understand the play better: “The thing I like about drama is that you can play another person’s life – it’s a distraction from normal life and you can live in another person’s shoes. You can explore any dimension in history, going back centuries before, which I find fascinating.”

Mahmudur’s fellow Underne House member, Varun Maheswaran, said: “It was a fun day. When we played out the Macbeth scenes, it was enjoyable to explore the play in an interactive way.”

Organised by Mr Hyland, the all-day event took place in a classroom and the Main Hall. It was led by experienced drama professionals Gavin Malloy and Lauren Steadman, from RM Drama, QE’s external drama partner.

The workshops focused on:

• Key characters – such as the relationship between Macbeth himself and Lady Macbeth
• Key scenes – looking at the opening with the three witches
• Key themes – including ambition, guilt, the supernatural and violence.

The techniques explored included the deployment of ‘freeze-frame’ tableaux, the use of dialogue and improvisation, and the development of soundscapes (where atmosphere is created by the use of collective sound).

With drama not being part of the normal classroom curriculum at QE, the day was especially significant for those Year 9 pupils who were not involved in the School Play, Lord of the Flies, at Easter nor in QE’s contribution to the Shakespeare Schools Festival in the autumn, Mr Hyland said. “While a good number of students have been involved in school productions, many other will not have had exposure to such an innovative approach to a Shakespearean text. It was really refreshing to watch boys perform so ably and creatively, and engage with Shakespeare in a completely different way. For many, this was an opportunity to demonstrate a set of talents that might have gone unnoticed in the classroom.

“The team from RM Drama did a fantastic job at getting our students active and involved – there was a real sense of energy and purpose as the day developed.”