Driffield School’s GCSE and Sixth Form performing arts students recently took a trip down to London to enjoy a jam-packed two days of theatre and fun.
After the ride down, the group enjoyed workshops at Pineapple Studios. (No, we did not see Louis Spence!).
The students had a choice of two workshops; one being stage combat, where I believe Mr Colley received a few ‘punches’ and ‘slaps’ from Angela!
The second was a musical theatre workshop where the students got to work with a real musical theatre performer, showing off Driffield School’s performance skills by putting together some Charlie and the Chocolate Factory inspired scenes.
After the workshops, the students had the chance to speak with the current ‘Head Oompa Loompa’ in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory the musical, where we got a real insight into the musical theatre industry.
Following some downtime in Convent Garden and a little pizza, we headed off to the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, to watch Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Seeing this world of pure imagination really helped to open our eyes to professional theatre: the standard of performance as well as the staging and tech side of things were impressive and will hopefully help us improve our own performances both in class and in the up and coming school musical. (Also, it was just really fun to watch!)
The next day, we started off by looking around the Natural History museum. I can’t say it particularly inspired me in terms of the performing arts; however we all enjoyed learning about the natural world, from dinosaurs to dodos.
We then headed back to Covent Garden where, quite excitingly, we saw the BAFTA tent being put up (quite fitting for a group of future performers!).
After some shopping and general London-ing we headed off to see The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.
This was definitely something a little bit different after previously watching Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
The play followed an autistic boy on the search to find out who had killed his neighbour’s dog. Whilst being very serious at times it was also incredibly funny. The play was performed in a more contemporary style than the musical, using minimal set and techniques like physical theatre.
Seeing these techniques in action really helped us to broaden our drama knowledge.
I’d just like to put in a little thank you to our teachers Mrs Brady, Mr Colley, Mrs Bilton, Mrs Charlton and Mrs Baron for giving up their time to take us all on this trip and for getting it off the ground. It was a valuable experience, which will definitely have a positive impact on our school work and would not have been possible if it wasn’t for this amazing trip!