Showtime with Shakespeare
Shakespeare 4 Kidz brings rock ’n’ roll ’n’ Romeo and Juliet to the Ipswich Regent next week.
David Henshall talks to company co-founder Julian Chenery
One of the most difficult tasksin education is trying to interest young people in our most famous playwright and,more importantly, finding a way of getting them to understand and enjoy him.Shakespeare 4 Kidz seem to have made a breakthrough by turning some of his best-known plays into musicals.
It’s been a long haul, but the company now reckons that around 100,000 people a year, mostly children, watch or stage their shows. They started with A Midsummer Night’s Dream and have since produced, Twelfth Night,The Tempest, Macbeth and Hamlet.Their latest, Romeo and Juliet, under the title Love at First Sight, is at the Ipswich Regent on Monday and Tuesday next week.
Julian Chenery and his friend Matt Gimblett got Shakespeare 4 Kidz off the ground in a small way in 1996 and their success has grown to the point where “pretty well every Englishspeaking country in the world is watching or performing our shows,” and the icing on the cake, a deal to film all their plays, is about to be signed. The Tempest will be first and Chenery says shooting will start soon.
‘‘ I get a big thrill
knowing that I can
bring 100,000
people a year into
the theatre, many
for the first time
Julian Chenery
The shows are a blend of modern language and the orginal Shakespeare text where it is easy to understand. “The big barrier to overcome if you want to get kids performing the showsis making sure they can understandit,” says Chenery. “It’s a ind of translation of what is meant, still keeping the essence and authenticity but mixing the two languages together. Hopefully it’s pretty seamless.
“In Romeo and Juliet the music and songs help to glue it all together and the youngsters often don’t realise thatthe poetry or verse is over 400 years old. It’s all blended with words their brains are tuned into.
“The music is Fifties-Sixties rock-’n’rolly and costume-wise it’s a bit that way as well, the Capulets leathery, the Montagues in chinos and white shirts but all without a defined style. The songs further the plot. The nurse has a vaudeville-type number to replace a long speech; Romeo and Juliet have a love ballad on the balcony and so on.
“I treat Romeo and Juliet as a romantic comedy that goes wrong - which it is until Mercutio and Tybalt are killed. There’s always a lot of fun
to be found in two people in love and the story is formed by all the characters who help to lighten the drama, the nurse and, of course, Friar Lawrence,the man who engages with God but Showtime with Shakespeare
‘‘ I get a big thrill
knowing that I can
bring 100,000
people a year into
the theatre, many
for the first time
Julian Chenery
who is playing God himself with drugs that can put people in a sleep of death for 42 hours. There are two things that worry me in this day and age, the suicide and the knife crime, and it’s important to be sure they are not treated lightly or with levity.”
Romeo and Juliet is probably the most famous love story in the world with its hugely popular scenes but,says Chenery, some of the best-known lines are frequently misunderstood.
“Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo, is not as many people think asking where he is. Instead, Juliet is asking why is he a Montague and therefore an enemy to her family.”
This key scene is enveloped in a big musical number and all the characters are strongly drawn because, he says, children want to know exactly what is going on, the order of things.
“If they don’t enjoy it, they won’tlearn and, more importantly, I want to switch people on to the joy of live theatre.”
Shakespeare 4 Kidz pitch their shows into what Chenery calls the Oliver!, Joseph, Bugsy Malone type of musicals and, having seen how many school parties were visiting the London Palladium for Oliver! in 1997,he was inspired to put together his own acting team to tour their plays.
The company had previously simply sold the scripts and the score of their shows with a CD of the music to help with rehearsals or as a backing track and this they continue to do.
Their on-the-road team of 20, with about 14 actors involved, was an instant success, moving quickly from school halls to autumn and spring term tours of the big UK theatres. They play Monday to Friday for schools with most of the performances during the day and maybe two evening shows in a week.
“The third string to our bow came when the Shakespeare became one of the authors children have to study as part of the literacy hour. So we started Shakespeare workshops as an add-on to our work and we now visit schools from Cornwall to Carlisle. It’s a big part of what we do and it all fits together quite snugly.
“What we do is a new experience for a lot of young people and we have the huge responsibility of making sure it is at least entertaining. I get abig thrill knowing that I can bring 100,000 people a year into the theatre, many for the first time, and, as a kickback,of introducing them to the wonderful stories of a genius playwright.”
■ Romeo and Juliet the Musical is at the Ipswich Regent on Monday at 1.30 and 7pm and on Tuesday at 10am &1.30pm
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