Doreen Worthington fondly recalls whole-school Christmas plays, musicals and pantomimes based on Shakespeare’s works
Re your feature on As You Like It with CBeebies at the Globe theatre in London (‘I’d crawl over broken glass to work here’: CBeebies take on Shakespeare, 9 August), when I was a primary teacher at a small school, we wrote, directed and produced a whole-school Christmas play/musical/pantomime every year, based on Shakespeare’s works. The casting was completely inclusive: every child in the school had a part, often written especially for them. Each play had original songs set to familiar tunes and a pantomime horse that resembled Eeyore. Some admittedly worked better than others: Macbeth the Panto was a great hit; Hamlet went on too long.
We did 11 plays altogether, from 2002 to 2012. Our final production was Antony and Cleopatra. In the programme, we wrote: “As children progress from playing beans, mice, fairies, etc in reception, to delivering long speeches in Shakespeare’s beautiful language in year 6, they develop their skills and self-confidence … giving their best effort to produce something they will remember with pride for many years. Children leave our school believing that Shakespeare’s plays are accessible and fun … and always include a big blue donkey.”
