Shakespeare 4 Kidz - S4K's Macbeth

By Phil Hewitt

The notorious Scottish play � Macbeth � gets the Shakespeare 4 Kidz treatment this autumn in a show heading for the Pavilion Theatre on November 16 and 17.

Weird witches, spooky spells, bloody battles, gruesome ghosts and even a forest which moves are all part of the fun.

The S4K Macbeth has been very well received each of the five times it has toured since its premiere in 2000, and its creator and company founder Julian Chenery is confident that the play will be a winner once again.

�There were lots of different strands that kicked the whole thing off,� Julian recalls. �But really it was going back to the early 90s when I was writing lots of different stuff primarily for primary schools to perform. We were very keen to give schools something with an educational benefit so the topics we did were related to the things they were studying. We ended up writing a full-length piece based on kids being evacuated during World War Two � and it was very popular.

Children

We hoped that might lead us down the path of writing more things for children to perform and so we looked around for other ideas, things like maybe Henry Vii or Nelson or the Battle of Hastings. But what actually inspired us was the fact that at the time England was bidding to host the 2006 football World Cup which actually went to Germany.

�But as part of the bid document they were saying that the icons of England were David Beckham, The Spice Girls, London double-decker buses and William Shakespeare.�

It set Julian thinking � most young children probably knew absolutely nothing abut Shakespeare and yet if you go abroad you soon discover that the culture in some places such as France is embedded in their daily lives in a way which ours simply isn�t

And so Julian hatched the plan to come up with an evening�s Shakespeare for children to perform, half an hour of comedy, half an hour tragedy, half an hour history. The school in question told Julian that it simply couldn�t be done. Julian proved them wrong � and soon moved towards a full-length adapted Shakespeare for primary school children to perform

Its success led in turn to the creation of a professional touring company offering primary school children Shakespeare in a form that is readily digested.

And so Shakespeare 4 Kidz was born..
The productions use the most famous lines from the original texts, weave them into modern language, add some songs and dances into the mix and the result is a two-hour entertainment which everyone � even the youngest primary lids � can understand.

Choreographer and co-director Joseph Fowler is clear: see the new production of Macbeth and you will really be able to say you�ve seen Shakespeare.
Joseph likens it to seeing two different productions of The Nutcracker by two different ballet companies.

�It�s still Shakespeare. We are just catering for a different audience. The accent is on a younger audience. It�s still the same setting.

Macbeth is at the Pavilion Theatre, Worthing on Monday November 16, at 1.30pm & 7.30pm and on Tuesday November 17, at 10am and 1.30pm. Tickets on 01903 206206.

What they say about us:
S4K HAMLET: "Too often in our busy lives we never seem to make time to thank people for the good things and yet we always seem to moan when things go wrong! However I would like to thank you for an outstanding performance of Hamlet at the Sands Centre in Carlisle. Two weeks ago we had the workshop which was great and really broke the play down for the children ( and some of the staff too) to understand. We have been busy studying Hamlet as well as Macbeth at school."

What they say about us:

S4K HAMLET: "Too often in our busy lives we never seem to make time to thank people for the good things and yet we always seem to moan when things go wrong! However I would like to thank you for an outstanding performance of Hamlet at the Sands Centre in Carlisle. Two weeks ago we had the workshop which was great and really broke the play down for the children ( and some of the staff too) to understand. We have been busy studying Hamlet as well as Macbeth at school."