Thursday 25 June saw local pupils performing selected scenes from Shakespeare in Stanley Park in the first ever Blackpool Schools’ Shakespeare Showcase and judging from their passion, energy and commitment to the language, these students’ journey with our national playwright has taken a super-confident first step.
The outdoor festival was coordinated by Blackpool Grand Theatre and Montgomery High School as the culmination of the first two years of work in a three-year relationship with the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC). As one of many Learning and Performance Network (LPN) partners, Blackpool is part of a nationwide network of educators and theatres aiming to bring about a change in the way young people experience, engage with, and take ownership of Shakespeare.
Grand Theatre’s Jo Cleasby said of the event: “The RSC staff who came to see the festival said it was one of the most ambitious second year events they’ve seen. It did take a lot of organisation but everybody played their part and so everything went really smoothly – it was great just to enjoy the students work all coming together on the day.”
The evening that was themed War and Conflict started in blazing glory with surround-sound speeches in the Italian Gardens from all the students – group by group and altogether. We were then led off to three areas of the park aka Base Camps. Act One for me took place at the circular steps by the cafe where students from Montgomery Secondary School performed ensemble-based extracts from Richard III and Hamlet, Park Community Academy and Thames Primary Academy both shared scenes from Romeo & Juliet with fierce ownership of every single word spoken.
Next we were ushered to the “Duck Mound” where Our Lady of Assumption Catholic Primary School excellently recreated the eerie Scottish battlefields of Macbeth, St Cuthberts Catholic Primary Academy used coloured masks to great effect to denote the two households of Romeo & Juliet and Anchorsholme Primary Academy offered deeper insight into the brave new world of The Tempest.
Our third act was at the Bandstand where we saw St George’s High School share the battle of wits between Beatrice and Benedick from Much Ado About Nothing, St Mary’s Catholic Secondary Academy who looked at the complex relationship between Juliet and her father and finally Marton Primary Academy who fiercely recreated the final fencing match from Hamlet that ends with myriad scattered bodies – a fitting end to this exposé of all things confrontational.
Our group could stay and enjoy the (well-timed) sunshine at the bandstand as all schools and audiences came together to end the event with a full-group rousing rendition of the famous St Crispen’s Day (“We band of brothers…”etc) speech from Henry V.
The event was enjoyed by approximately 400 people and judging from the responses I heard, they were all impressed. My favourite quote though that truly shows just how embedded and individual these students’ understanding of Shakespeare is becoming is on the printed programme that we were all given at the start: “Miss, he was behaving like Tybalt when he antagonised Mercutio! And we all know how that ended!” We do indeed! Or if we don’t I’m sure these students will be able to enlighten us – in full gory detail!
Images courtesy of Jill Reidy.
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