The Oxford Shakespeare Company, fresh from performing their A Comedy of Errors in London, happily agreed to open their Oxford summer season a day early especially for Leckford students and parents!
Reviewed by The Guardian as 'an exuberant outdoor production — faultless performances, a toe-tapping, heart-warming hoot', a wonderful summer’s afternoon was enjoyed by all! Against the beautiful backdrop of the Wadham College gardens, we were treated to a musical and modern interpretation of one of Shakespeare’s lesser-known comedies.
The performance retained the puns and slapstick style typical of Shakespeare’s comedies with more modern twists and audience interaction making the play more engaging and easy to follow than is often the case with Shakespeare productions. A huge thank you to those parents who came along to share the day!
— Words and photo by Joanne Williams, English teacher
This term’s imaginative and daring reimagination of The Tempest saw Shakespeare’s last, great play relocated to a technological scrapheap in the Pacific.
The Tempest is, famously, a play that sits uncomfortably within its ‘comedy’ genre: falsehood, betrayal, absolute power and impending death are woven into its fabric. Fittingly, the d’Overbroeck’s production (directed by Drama teacher Joe Swarbrick) accentuated the text’s unsettling ambivalence.
There were moments of huge dramatic impact – as harpies writhed and shrieked, and ships were torn apart in raging seas – but also times of quiet introspection.
Lydia Hassan dominated the play with an extraordinarily nuanced rendition of Prospera, veering from rage to exhultation to troubled introspection. The resulting performance was powerfully compelling – all the more remarkable when you consider the fact that this is a role typically wrestled with by professional actors as they near the end of their career.
Tal Fineman and Will Cronk’s treacherous plotting was suitably distasteful, Felicity Hughes’ Miranda and Joe Wolfensohn’s Ferdinand enacted a haltingly tender courtship, and a troupe of shimmering Ariels were in turn impish and cacophanous.
Meanwhile, the drunken ramblings of Stephano (Sam Rigal) and Trinculo (Daisy Jordan) were hilarious – offset by the disturbing presence of Sixth Former Emma Gonnella’s brilliantly played Caliban.
This week sees the long-awaited College performance of the Tempest. To whet your appetites, we caught up with Joe Swarbrick – drama teacher and the play's director for a short interview.
In the video below, Joe describes the play's aesthetic – inspired by gigantic heaps of discarded machinery – and how a 400 year-old text can tell us something today about the interplay between knowledge and power.
The video features original music written and recorded by Joe.
This term's dramatic highlight will be a d'Overbroeck's College production of the Tempest. Shakespeare's last play – a dark, brooding comedy about power, cruelty, love and magic – has been relocated to a technological junk heap in the middle of the Pacific. On this pile of discarded motherboards, monitors and technological detritus sits Prospera, usurped Duchess of Milan, and her daughter Miranda.
Caliban, their slave, the man who built the island with his mother Sycorax, plots his revenge on Prospera, while Prospera herself spies her former enemies on a passing ship. Summoning a storm with her sprite Ariel, the ship is wrecked on the shore of the island and its occupants scattered. As they all try to make sense of their new situation, they realise the island is not what it seems and that someone is controlling their every move.
A thought-provoking and visceral new interpretation of a complex and fascinating play, students from across the d'Overbroeck's family combine video, physical theatre, a cutting-edge soundtrack and exciting visual effects to bring you Shakespeare like you've never seen it before. Intense, energetic, funny and tragic by turn, this promises to be a spectacular theatrical event.
Thursday 1 & Friday 2 July, 7pm Leckford Place Hall Tickets £10 (adult), £6 (student/concession)
As part of the ongoing partnership between d'Overbroeck's College and Creation Theatre, we're delighted to announce that students, parents and staff at the College will receive a 25% discount on tickets for Creation's Christmas show: Beauty and the Beast.
How to book
The first of our special d'Overbroeck's Evenings will be Wednesday 2 December (we'll announce another date in future). So all d'Overbroeck's parents, pupils and staff will receive 25% off Premium and Band A tickets for that night.
To claim your discount, please telephone the Creation Theatre Box Office on 01865 766266 – and when you give your name, remember to say that you are from d'Overbroeck's.
Book early to guarantee a ticket – no later, please, than Friday 6 November.
The Spiegeltent, in which the performance will take place
More about Beauty and the Beast
This Christmas, join Creation for a fresh magical retelling of the timeless fairytale Beauty and the Beast. Forget cartoons, panto and Disney, this Beauty will engage you with magic, music and comedy in the amazing Spiegeltent at Oxford’s MINI Plant. Suitable for ages 6-96 years, you can also enjoy delicious gourmet crepes at your cabaret style table.
“This colourful slice of storytelling should hook both children and adults alike” (Oxford Mail)
“For two heart-melting hours, they banish all cares.” (The Daily Telegraph)
In celebration of National Book Week, pupils and staff came into school on Tuesday 6 October dressed as characters from fiction.
The costumes were impressive, and at break time all of the characters assembled for photographs in the Hall – with prizes awarded to some of the most imaginative creations.
Another year; another Drama competition. This annual event, where each English group selects and performs part of a text that they have studied during the year, was a celebration of enthusiasm and team effort. The presentations included excerpts from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Twelfth Night, Animal Farm, Much Ado about Nothing, Pygmalion, The Importance of being Earnest, A View from the Bridge and a play called Orphans, which started with a speech by Pip from Great Expectations.
As you can see, we were treated to a wide range of material. The pupils rose to the occasion.
With only two weeks of English lessons devoted to perfecting their performances, the students worked hard, deciding on their roles, learning lines and creating props. We were lucky to secure the services of two members of the Creation Theatre Company: Connor McReynolds came to give valuable advice on performance, during the dress rehearsals, and Jessica Bridge judged the competition, giving detailed and most encouraging comments in her adjudication.
The winners were a year 10 group, who performed a couple of extracts from Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge – a text they studied for GCSE coursework. Particularly memorable were the performances of Will Cronk as Eddie, the troubled Brooklyn longshoreman; his almost too realistic fight with Rodolpho (aka Humza); Vinay Bahl’s demonstration of physical dominance as he lifted a chair with one hand, from the base of one leg (try it – it’s far more difficult than it seems) and really convincing performances from the rest of the cast.
The winner of the contemporary presentation was a year 8 group, who performed their own version of Animal Farm. Although based largely on the novel, they added a contemporary touch of dance, music and humour. The overall effect, however, was extremely chilling and gave a real insight into the dangers of the abuse of political power.
Both year 7 groups won the Shakespeare award for their lovely interpretations of different sections of The Dream. The judge was very impressed by the understanding which under-pinned the delivery of quite difficult lines. They also conveyed the humour of the play.
There were many other individual commendations and prizes, but the biggest reward was a day of real entertainment and enrichment.
Towards the end of term, a thronged Leckford Place hall was treated to the jamboree of performing arts that is the Summer Soiree.
Guitar, recorder, euphonium, viola … Leckford’s instrumentalists showed off their skills – and the range of genres was similarly eclectic: from baroque to britpop, soul to showtunes. Many of the musical performances were clearly pupil-led – testament to the fertile school music scene.
And what a variety of voices! Whether it was Lydia Hassan’s captivatingly pared-down delivery of her own song, Skinny Jeans, Tal Fineman’s assured cover-versions of classic rock numbers, or Flora McGivan’s strikingly intense performance of All That Jazz, it was a pleasure to hear so many different styles and interpretations.
The whole evening was shot through with doses of comic surrealism, meanwhile, thanks to a series of year 9 performances – imaginative pieces that demonstrated the expressive possibilities of puppetry.
Last term's performance of 1920s farce Not in Front of the Waiter – featuring students from both Leckford Place and d'Overbroeck's Sixth Form – was a great success. The following writeup appears in the Oxford Times Education Directory 2009, with this week's paper.
Students from Leckford Place School and d'Overbroeck's Sixth Form took a different approach to their winter production with the comedy operetta and tribute to Offenbach, ‘Not in Front of the Waiter.’ The audience were as much part of the production as the players and singers, as the vaulted school hall was transformed into a 1920’s cabaret club for the evening. Friends, family and guests, most of whom were elegantly attired in period dress, settled themselves at candlelit tables as the action took place around them.
This lavish production was served up in a series of delicious courses of songs of the era and the main performance. For Hors d’Oeuvres, the pearl-like voices of Pankaew Saksornchai and Chanita Seedaket got the audience’s attention as they sang about Gershwin’s treacherous ‘Lorelei,’ a provocative performance, enhanced by the young singers’ abundance of feathers and fans.
For Entrée the truly scrumptious Olivia Fraser-Smith melted hearts with her husky rendition of Iving Berlin’s classic, ‘What’ll I do?’ Even compere Will Cronk struggled to keep a dry eye as he presented, for Viandes, the marvellous Ben Pugsley, Captain of d’Overbroeck’s rugby first XV, who gave a faultless performance of Denza’s ‘Funiculi Funicula.’ Dessert drew the musical prelude to a close with the opulent Fleur Rampton, who carried the audience away on her ‘Stairway to Paradise.’
A break for dinner followed as guests were lavishly served by waitresses Louisa Goodfellow and Eva Rorsman, and then onto the Plat du Jour, ‘Not in Front of the Waiter’ ….
This comedy operetta was first performed in the 1960’s as a tribute to Jacques Offenbach. The Leckford Place School players, with the help of a large aspidistra, brought it to life fabulously. The story starts with waiter Block (Will Cronk) preparing to receive his guests in the private room of a Paris restaurant. Solange (Zanni Cohen) and Prosper (Matt Thorns) enter and take a table next to an enormous aspidistra. The audience learns that they are both married, though not to each other, and out to enjoy a clandestine meeting. Moments later, Hortense (Rosie Cohen) and Aristide (Gidon Fineman) arrive at an adjoining table. They are bent on a similar amorous escapade and are indeed the wife and husband of the first couple. It is not long before all is discovered; the young ladies humorously exaggerating astonishment then indignity and a quarrel ensues. The waiter intervenes to reveal that from a strawberry mark on the ladies' shoulders, he recognises them as the daughters he shamelessly abandoned in childhood. The four listen with incredulity, then the ladies rejoice in having each found a father, a sister and also a brother-in-law. Reconciliation abounds, and all join in a song in praise of family trees.
The five players gave their all with a performance that is worthy of any professional stage. Zanni and her Sixth-Form sister Rosie Cohen, whilst their casting of siblings in the play was fortuitous, are clearly very talented young ladies. They carried their roles with precision comic timing, faultless singing and the wild emotions that drew the appropriate gasps of awe and shock from the audience. Their respective partners brilliantly played roles above their years; Matt Thorns convincingly projecting his ulterior motive with the delectable Solange, becoming the confused husband in the face of too much information to take in at once. Sixth-Former Gidon Fineman was icily cool as the highbrow Aristide, clearly a man who just wanted a quiet life, and proved himself as an actor who could effortlessly handle slapstick along with the smooth. It is worthy of note that Gidon was the recent winner of Oxfordshire County Council's first ever Young Composer competition.
These four wonderful performances were brought together with great aplomb by Will Cronk with his hilarious rendition of Block the waiter, demonstrating his talent as a comic performer with a natural instinct for timing and delivery. Very polished, he won the audience’s sympathy as the luckless Block, a man who has paid royally for his misdemeanours, only to be rewarded by this coincidental reunion.
Yesterday, Year 10 GCSE Drama students visited Chesterton Church of England Primary School's reception class. They performed a masked piece they had devised, based on overcoming fears about starting school and different ways to make friends.
The students then worked with the younger children, helping them make their own masks to illustrate a variety of feelings.
The visit was a great success: the children were engaged and excited throughout – and the Year 10 students learned a great deal too!
On Friday afternoon, GCSE students at Leckford Place performed scenes from Pinter's Mountain Language. In keeping with the play's characteristic austerity, the production was minimal and direct, with silence used as a powerful dramatic device - quite as much as the spoken lines.
Exploring the theme of language - specifically, its power as a vehicle of oppression - the play centres upon a small group of "mountain people", who are forbidden by military decree to use their own language, instructed instead to adopt the "language of the capitol".
Posts
