Today, Class 4/5 visited Shakespeare’s Globe in London as part of their work in Literacy. They have been looking at his plays, summarising them and started to act them out, so it was great to have the opportunity to see where they would have been performed all those years ago.
It was a long journey into London, but it was a beautifully sunny day, and there was plenty to do which made it all worthwhile. We were greeted by our guide Rachel, who has acted on stage at The Globe herself. She began by taking us on a tour of the theatre where we talked about how it was different to theatres today and what it would have been like on the Southbank in Shakespeare’s time. We got to sit in the second tier, which meant we had a good view of the stage and could easily see where all the different classes would have sat.
After our tour, we ventured across the road to another building for our workshop on A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Firstly, Rachel got the children to warm up with a couple of activities as a whole class before separating them into smaller groups. She asked them to create a freeze frame where we could clearly see who were King Oberon and Queen Titania, rulers of the fairies. The children had to think carefully about making their positions work for an audience that would be all around them, just like in The Globe. After this, they split into pairs and Rachel explained that in the opening of the play Queen Titania is given a baby boy to look after. She wants to look after him as one of her own, while King Oberon wants to make him his servant. They are arguing about this as the play begins and so the children had to deliver a line to each other using their body language and expression to get their emotions across.