10 December 2024
In recent weeks, Upper Sixth students studying English A Level have enjoyed Shakepeare’s Othello and Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, being joined for the latter by their Lower Sixth peers, while Year 11 relished Dickens’ festive A Christmas Carol at The Old Vic.
Dr Markus Klinge, Second in English Department
Othello – Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon
Our day in Stratford began with a visit to Shakespeare’s Birthplace, where we saw the rooms in which he was born and lived as a boy and young man. Anjali expressed how moving it was to see all the old, eighteenth- and nineteenth-century graffiti from previous generations of Shakespeare enthusiasts carefully preserved in the Birthplace.
Later, we saw a superb production of Othello at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. John Douglas Thomas as Othello, Will Keen as Iago and Juliet Rylance as Desdemona were all in good form: lavish period costumes clashed with a scaled-back, minimalist set, placing Shakespeare’s tragedy specifically in Renaissance Venice and Cyprus, whilst also underlining the play’s universal, timeless qualities. Eden especially liked the innovative “use of light, sound and space”, which made this an effective staging and Poppy felt that “the acting was captivating”.
We were also lucky enough to have a special, exclusive backstage tour of the theatre, arranged and conducted by Al Barclay, who played Lodovico in the production. Alice was particularly excited about squeezing right past Desdemona and Emilia (Juliet Rylance and Anastasia Hille) as they were going out of the stage door, as well as being so close to all the props used in the play: “We saw the handkerchief!” The icing on the cake for everyone was to set foot on the hallowed stage of Royal Shakespeare Theatre (main photo).
The Importance of Being Earnest – the National Theatre, London
Sixth Formers had a highly entertaining evening at the National Theatre, where they saw an all-star cast in Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, headed by the amazing Ncuti Gatwa (also of Dr Who fame). A camp and self-consciously performative staging sought to highlight the queer aspects of the play, while Lady Bracknell was played as a (very formidable) Jamaican matriarch: both directorial decisions allowed the play to promote a sense of inclusivity in a script that appears (but on the surface) like a pastiche of upper-class English elitism. This is a sentiment which, no doubt, Oscar Wilde would have applauded. Izzy described the play as “One of the best things I have ever seen,” Jovie commented, “I loved the modern twist,” while Alice said she felt exhausted after two and a half hours of solid laughter.
A Christmas Carol – The Old Vic, London
Year 11 English students enjoyed a trip to the Old Vic to see a stage version of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, a text studied for GCSE English Literature. John Simm – of Dr Who fame – was an excellent Scrooge, misanthropic to the core, but beautifully thawed towards the end. The production took some unusual decisions: it interpolated aspects of Dickens’ own life into the storyline and turned the three Ghosts of Christmas into female figures who accompanied Scrooge on his redemptive journey (thereby adding a strong female element into a usually quite male-centred tale). The atmosphere was wonderfully festive, complete with bell ringing, Christmas carols, heavy stage-snow and an oversized turkey. At one point, some of our Year 11s were asked to lob Brussel sprouts (with individual parachutes) from the upper galleries down into the stalls! What’s not to like? Amelia said she particularly enjoyed the staging and felt that the extra scenes and dialogue added exciting new perspectives to the play, while Temidore loved the music and the various instrumentalists who accompanied the performance.
