Shakespeare 4 Kidz News

It’s Shakespeare but this version is dream for kids

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SHAKESPEARE 4 KIDZ promises fairies and fun with a child-friendly adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream which is coming to Yeovil this month.

The idea to use the original plot,characters and well known quotes from the play and combine these with modern language, music, song and dance, was born from a school production of the play in 1996.

Since then S4K has gone from strength to strength with regular UK tours and an extensive repertoire of interpretations including Hamlet and Twelfth Night.

Julian Chenery, chief executive, director and co-writer of S4K productions, said the company was set up in order to make Shakespeare easier to understand.

“We wanted to make sure children are not alienated by the stories,” he said.

“I believe learning about our cultural heritage is as important as learning about current affairs and the way the world works.”

Julian, who is looking forward to the production coming to Yeovil, said “The Dream is one of my favourites. It was our flagship show. It proved to me that we could succeed and the audience reaction is great.

“Live performance is a fantastic thing. We are in danger of losing those skills and limiting ourselves to passive entertainment. “With S4K, no two performances are the same. I hope people will watch our plays and then go on to watch the original and other Shakespeare plays.”

He adds that going from no Shakespeare to full Shakespeare is a big step. “We wanted to be the gap between the platform and the train,” he said. The company organises workshops in local schools a few weeks prior to each performance to get children involved from an early stage.

The appeal of the stage show has seen S4K travel around the globe to the likes of Dubai and Gibraltar. But for Chenery 2011 could be the year that S4K expands into movies.

“Theatre is great and very successful for us but producing copies of our productions means the shows will reach and benefit more people than they already do,” he said.

The Dream has gained a large celebrity following since its opening in September 2010, with Dame Helen Mirren describing the show as “something to be enjoyed by all age groups”.

Puck, the naughty sprite whose mischief and magic causes “no end of hilarity”, is played by Noel Andrew Harron in The Dream.

Harron is currently finishing anS4K tour in Bahrain. He has performed with the company for a number of years and is thoroughly enjoying his time as Puck. He said: “I love introducing kids to Shakespeare, knowing they are enjoying it.”

Shakespeare 4 Kidz presents A Midsummer Night’s Dream at The Octagon Theatre, Yeovil, on Wednesday,February 16, at 10.30am and 1.30pm

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BARD'S WORK IS CHILD'S PLAY

by Hannah Marsh

GETTING kids into Shakespeare can be a challenge, but there’s one theatre company with it’s sights firmly set on engaging youngsters in the work of the Bard.

Kiss – Titania and an ass-headed Bottom in Shakespeare 4 Kidz production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Shakespeare 4 Kidz is the brainchild of director Julian Chenery and he’s bringing one of it’s most successful productions, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, on tour to the Cliffs Pavilion, Westcliff, at the end of the month.

The tale of Duke Theseus and his Amazonian Queen Hippolyta, two sets of lovers who get lost in a forest patrolled by a feuding fairy King and Queen, the mischevious sprite Puck and the hapless workman Bottom, has enough of its own magic to capture most imaginations.

But the company gives it a child-friendly makeover, working in music, song and modern language, while keeping in classic lines from the original text.

“We felt the reason people often turned off Shakespeare, for whatever reason, was that studying it at school was so dull, like learning Greek or Latin,” explains Julian.

“The language created a barrier, some people engaged with it and some didn’t. We felt if you could tell the story to a much younger age group the fear would disappear.” It’s recieved high praise and celebrity endorsement, with Southend’s own Helen Mirren dubbing it “the Avatar of Shakespeare, with something to be enjoyed by all age groups, a great message and lots of fun and fantasy”.

“It’s a musical theatre production,” says Julian. “It blends understandable language with the original Shakespeare text and songs and dance and music.

“It’s very funny, it lasts a couple of hours and it keeps very faithful to the plot and the charaters.”

Julian was inspired to set up the company after he realised that despite Shakespeare’s iconic status, many people knew nothing about some of his most famous plays.

He explains: “That’s what triggered it for me. If Shakespeare was such a big part of English culture then why is it so many people couldn’t tell you the plot of Hamlet or Macbeth?

“The problems as far as dealing with Shakespeare as pieces of entertainment or something you learn at school is the language. It isn’t easy to understand for most young people of the 21st century.”

A Midsummer Night’s Dream was the first production the company turned its hand to, back in 1996.

Since then their version of the classic play has been performed by schools up and down the country.

The company’s repertoire now includes Macbeth, Hamlet, Twelfth Night, the Tempest and Romeo and Juliet, as well as A Midsummer Night’s Dream and three of the shows are due to be transfered onto the silver screen this year.

“We’re working with Elsinore Productions on film versions of Hamlet, Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet,” says Julian.

“We should start shooting them in May or June.

“We’re doing Hamlet and Macbeth together and hopefully by the end of the year we’ll have three of them ready to be released whenever the distributer wants to do them.”

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Theatre
For the theatre-starved audience of Bahrain, now is the time to indulge. From January 15 to 17, Shakespeare 4 Kidz (S4K) will enthral the Kingdom with its child-friendly musical theatre adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The Shakespearean comedy will see the 20-member team from the UK regaling us with highly professional theatre. The show will be staged at the Bahrain Alumni Club and will be fun for both children and adults alike.

From February 3-5, it will be the turn of Music and Stage for Kids (MASK) to present the play Bugsy Malone. With a cast comprising only children, this play will be staged at the British Club.

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The Shakespeare for children

Jo Wadham

The Dream Team with Julian Chenery in production of Shakespeare for kids. Photo Courtesy of Shakespeare for Kids production / Elyse Marks

This month will see Shakespeare's classic tale of fairy meddlings and mismanaged love come to Dubai when A Midsummer Night's Dream is performed at the Dubai Community Theatre and Arts Centre. But this is no classic Shakespeare production: it is Shakespeare with musical numbers, adapted specifically for a younger audience and performed by a company of actors called Shakespeare 4 Kidz.

"Most people think 'Shakespeare' and then think 'boring'," says Sean Luckham who plays Bottom in the shows. "But we have songs, comedy, fantastic sets, fantastic costumes. It's visually amazing – a complete festival for the eyes. If we get children interested in Shakespeare early then they are on a complete roller coaster of enjoyment. People have preconceptions about Shakespeare and that is what we are here to dispel."

There is plenty in A Midsummer Night's Dream that will appeal to a younger audience. This is a tale of the jealousy of the Fairy King, Oberon, of his wife's affection for a serving boy which leads him to scheme against her, using the elf, Puck. Two love-struck human couples get caught up in the fairies' shenanigans, which leads to all sorts of comic consequences.

Speaking on the phone from the UK, cast member Noel Andrew Harron explains why he thinks A Midsummer Night's Dream is the perfect Shakespeare play for children to watch. "It's a play that really speaks to kids, and is fun. Things they know and hear about, it just captures their imaginations. Then there is the comic element with the mechanicals putting on their play."

Harron uses his portrayal of Puck, covered in green body paint and glitter, both to lead the audience through the play and to form a link between the actors on stage, Shakespeare, and the children themselves.

"I speak to the children and ask them to be my friends. I want to try to engage and be as likeable and understandable to them as I can. Puck is cheeky, fast-talking, and I use a modern reference they can hook into, so they think 'He knows that? He's cool'. Then they think 'Oh, but this is Shakespeare, what's going on'?"

Traditionalists might deplore the adaptation of Shakespeare into the musical genre and the "z" in the company's name, but this doesn't phase Julian Chenery, Shakespeare 4 Kidz's writer, director and producer, who believes that their adaptation only sends more people towards Shakespeare's works and other, more classical, productions.

"Some people don't like it, saying we are spoiling it, ruining the old-style verse, but we are making it more appealing without dumbing-down. We are putting on a different type of theatrical production," says Chenery. "Then, as the children's vocabulary matures, they can go and see more classical productions and enjoy them, too."

For Chenery and the cast, bringing a love of Shakespeare to children is the driving force behind their productions. "Just as the film Oliver did for Dickens, we are trying to make Shakespeare's language more understandable and use the musical theatre-style structure, but without losing the authenticity of the narrative."

He explains: "The characters, the relationships, the themes are all there; there's been no massive alteration to the story; we just do it in a format that makes it more accessible to young people or to people for whom English is not their first language."

Being familiar with the story, Chenery argues, will give children a head start so that when they are older and studying Shakespeare, they can pass straight on to deeper analysis of his works.

"There is an inner confidence element to reading the full text of Shakespeare," says Chenery. "When they know the story inside-out because they've seen productions like Shakespeare 4 Kidz, they will have the confidence not to be intimidated by it. For example, with Hamlet, it's a most enigmatic and intriguing piece of work, but unless you understand the basic story, how can you go deeper?"

Don't think that a production for children will be half-hearted or any less professional than a classical theatre production. As Harron explains, children can be as demanding as the toughest of theatre critics.

"Performing for kids, they are the most honest audience you ever get. If they are bored, you see it in their faces; if they are going to heckle, they will, no matter what their teachers say. As an actor, I enjoy their honest response; it ups my game. If I'm not performing to the best of my abilities, they will let me know. It's a good incentive. Once you get that response at the end, when they're all cheering and clapping, well, there's nothing like it."

Shakespeare 4 Kidz began life in 1996 at a school in Surrey in the UK. Chenery, who had been working in theatre for several years, was asked to write a musical play with significant educational content about the Second World War, then decided to turn his hand to Shakespeare.

"The original idea was to perform one comedy, one history and one tragedy each in a half-hour version with a bit of music and simpler language," explains Chenery. "The first one we attacked was A Midsummer Night's Dream, and I realised I didn't want to leave anything out, so we did it as a full-length show." That show was a huge success and as Chenery modestly states "we realised we were on to something".

Shakespeare 4 Kidz now tours the UK from Cornwall to Carlisle and internationally has put on shows in the UAE, Bahrain, Jordan, Gibraltar and soon South Korea. But the ambitions of the company do not stop there.

This year production will start on three feature films of the Shakespeare 4 Kidz adaptations of Romeo and Juliet,Hamlet and Macbeth. "We are casting the films in New York and London in January and will start shooting in North America in May with the films being released by the end of the year," explains Chenery.

The cast and crew are familiar with Dubai now, having visited the emirate every year since 1997. Chenery was over this summer as well, directing the smash hit Hairspray at Ductac.

One of the things the cast are looking forward to is not necessarily visiting Dubai's latest five-star hotel; instead they can't wait to go back to the little local café near the theatre for their post-production meals. "There's a fabulous little café near the theatre called Food & Drink. It became our little local. After the shows we would sit down inside and have the most wonderful food," says Luckham.

"This is a magical play," says Harron. "The cast really enjoy it too and get a lot out of it. Shakespeare is fun."

Shakespeare 4 Kidz "does exactly what it says on the tin," says Chenery. "We are not trying to be the RSC [Royal Shakespeare Company], but this subject is so interesting and culturally important, why can't we create a way of engaging young people who, for the rest of their lives, will enjoy Shakespeare?"