S1’s Midsummer Night’s Dream

S1 have been studying ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ by William Shakespeare. In the play’s last act a troupe of crude labourers perform a play before the Duke of Athens.

Much like pupils first encountering Shakespeare’s Early Modern English Language, the labourers don’t really understand the subtlety needed for drama, and their tragic tale is a tragedy for all the wrong reasons. 1T3 set out about trying to emulate the labourers’ example – putting on their version of ‘The most lamentable comedy and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisbe.’

Creating props, from nothing more than some sticky-back plastic and loo roll, rehearsing ‘most obscenely’ and delivering lines with great energy (and not a hint of garlic or onion), they truly made the play within a play come alive.