When the Spring Term lockdown forced a sudden end to rehearsals for the School play, QE’s young actors harnessed technology so that they could still perform to an audience.
With the help of QE’s resident Theatre Director, Gavin Molloy, members of the Year 8 drama club learned, staged and filmed dramatic monologues from home .
And, after weeks of preparation and practice, at the end of term, their highly varied work was revealed to classmates, staff and parents alike as the monologues went live.
Crispin Bonham-Carter, Assistant Head (Pupil Involvement) said: “The speeches were taken from a range of classic and modern texts by authors ranging from Charles Dickens to Michael Morpurgo. The boys went to great lengths creating costumes, props and backdrops in their own homes.”
The recorded Zoom videos were put together in an online showcase, which was watched in School by boys during form time and has now been published for parents on the School’s eQE online platform.
Fifteen boys took part in the showcase, which was split into two halves for the presentation on eQE.
Their selections drew on some of the best-known authors and stories from the history of English literature. Ash Iyer performed from Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None; Soham Kale read from An Inspector Calls by J B Priestley; Simi Bloom picked one of Arthur Conan Doyle’s most famous stories, The Hound of the Baskervilles, and Adi Dhan chose Dickens’ Great Expectations.
But more modern authors were certainly not forgotten: Aadam Aslan’s monologue was taken from Michael Morpurgo’s Private Peaceful. Keon Robert performed from The Class, by playwright and Game of Thrones actor Luke Barnes, while Karan Somani performed an excerpt from Roy Williams’ play about boxing and racism, Sucker Punch.
One boy, William Joanes, read from the play that was postponed, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, based on Mark Haddon’s novel of the same name.
With lockdown over, full-scale rehearsals to put on this award-winning play resumed towards the end of term. It will be staged in June as the 2021 School Play.