Phyllida Lloyd’s acclaimed production, set in a women’s prison, takes up a week’s residency at St Mary’s Catholic Academy, with two community performances and a post-show conversation on creative health and young people
Dame Harriet Walter is to lead the Royal Shakespeare Company’s landmark all-female production of Julius Caesar at St Mary’s Catholic Academy in Blackpool, as part of a week-long school residency.
The RSC is bringing Phyllida Lloyd’s celebrated staging to the school from Monday 19 to Friday 23 October. It is the fifth stop on a five-week tour of partner schools and communities across England. Walter, an Olivier Award-winning actor, plays Brutus.
Ancient Rome is reimagined as a group of female prisoners perform a 90-minute version of Shakespeare’s tragedy. As they act out a story of leadership, control and corruption, their own fights for freedom and justice, and the power politics of prison life, come into harsh focus.
The production premiered at the Donmar Warehouse in 2012, the first instalment of Lloyd’s all-female Shakespeare trilogy. It has since played in London, New York, prisons and schools, with The Observer called it “one of the most important theatrical events of the past 20 years”.
Lloyd said the decision to take it into schools reflected a belief that young people “deserve world-class theatre – the absolute best of the best”. “If they cannot afford to come to us, we are coming to them,” she said.
Since 2012, she added, “the world was a different place. Obama had just begun his second term in office and dictatorships were crumbling across the Arab world. Now populist leaders proliferate, ‘NO KINGS!’ marches take place across the USA and international laws are no longer sacred.” If there is a play for today “to travel the country and inspire the young voices of the future, this is the one”.
St Mary’s is an RSC Lead Associate School and the visit is the product of a long relationship between the company and Blackpool Grand Theatre.
“Where a child lives and the kind of school they go to is still the greatest predictor of whether they will get access to high quality arts experiences.”
Celine Wyatt, the Grand’s head of creative learning and development, said the theatre had been “a proud theatre partner with the RSC for 14 years and been committed to their First Encounter tours since they first toured schools, community venues and performed on our stage.
“We are thrilled that this work is coming to St Mary’s Academy, one of our lead Associate Schools,” she said. “We have 16 schools in the programme and many of them, along with community, will be seeing this powerful work.”
Adam Knight, the Grand’s chief executive, said his own first encounter with the RSC came in early 1994, when he saw David Thacker’s production of Julius Caesar, with Jeffrey Kissoon, David Sumner and Finbar Lynch, at Lancing Leisure Centre, close to his hometown of Worthing.
“I was completely entranced,” he said.
“It feels wonderfully fitting that, as chief executive of Blackpool Grand, we are now celebrating our 14-year partnership with the RSC by welcoming Phyllida Lloyd’s acclaimed production of Julius Caesar, starring the outstanding Dame Harriet Walter, to the school gym at St Mary’s Catholic Academy next week. Perhaps there will be a 15-year-old in the audience who is equally inspired and goes on to become a future chief executive of The Grand!”
The production is part of the RSC’s First Encounters with Shakespeare programme, which creates edited, 90-minute versions of the plays for young people who may be seeing Shakespeare performed for the first time.
During the residency, teachers across subjects will adapt their lessons to the play’s themes of power, justice and responsibility. Members of the company will lead workshops with Blackpool Youth Creatives and the academy’s Shakespeare Ambassadors, plus debates and career talks on the play’s contemporary relevance and how young people can use their voices to create change.
Up to four students will shadow the touring production team, gaining hands-on experience of backstage and technical work. The school’s Young Creatives will also develop their own responses to the play, to be shared at a Young Creatives Festival at The Other Place in Stratford-upon-Avon on Saturday 21 November, bringing together 200 young people from across the tour.
A limited number of community performances will take place at the school on Monday 19 October and Thursday 22 October, both at 6pm. Priority booking is initially offered to local community groups, invited audiences and friends and family of the school community.
The Thursday performance will be followed by a community conversation asking how creative health and wellbeing activity and infrastructure can support young people at risk of engaging with the criminal justice system. Chris Webb, MP for Blackpool South, and Dr Elaine McNeill join the panel alongside members of the company and invited speakers from the local community and criminal justice system.
“Elaine brings a wealth of experience in the field of creative health,” said Wyatt. McNeill is now an arts-based researcher with the Mobilising Community Assets programme at UCL Arts & Science.
Jacqui O’Hanlon, the RSC’s deputy executive director and director of creative learning and engagement, said the company now has a 20-year evidence base that describes the very real difference that an arts rich education makes to a child’s life and learning outcomes.
“All children should have this entitlement, but all children don’t,” she said. “Where a child lives and the kind of school they go to is still the greatest predictor of whether they will get access to high quality arts experiences.”
Joining Walter are original company members Jackie Clune as Julius Caesar, Leah Harvey as Mark Antony, Jennifer Joseph as Trebonius, Jenny Jules as Cassius and Carolina Valdés as Casca. They are joined by Kosar Ali, Shona Babayemi, Darcy Dixon, Shalisha James-Davis and Siân Stephens. Set and costume design is by Bunny Christie.
The production renews Lloyd and KPPL’s work with criminal justice associate artist Rachel Frank and women from HMP New Hall, ensuring the prison setting is rooted in lived experience.
First Encounters: Julius Caesar is at St Mary’s Catholic Academy, St Walburgas Road, with community performances on Monday 19 October and Thursday 22 October at 6pm. The 22 October performance is followed by a post-show conversation. Running time is about 90 minutes and the recommended age is 12+. For booking, visit blackpoolgrand.co.uk/first-encounters-julius-caesar.
