On Friday, March 10th, Year 10 – 13 drama and theatre students had the opportunity to see Pilot Theatre’s production of ‘Noughts and Crosses’ at the Oxford Playhouse. The play has been the Winner of Excellence in Touring as well as a Finalist for Best Show for Children and Young People by the UK Theatre Awards 2019. It is adapted by Sabrina Mahfouz from the original novel by Malorie Blackman. It is a modern ‘Romeo and Juliet’ and is a ‘captivating drama of love, revolution and what it means to grow up in a divided world.‘
The lead characters were super and our students were also impressed with the clever set design and the transitions between short, fast-paced scenes. The set designer Simon Kenny writes that “Rather than a series of rooms, we have a simple, abstract space and minimal furniture which we can use to represent any location we need – a canvas against which we can portray an epic sweep of drama, poetry and movement as the story unfolds and reveals itself, so too does the set.” Our students were very inspired by this and it gave them ample ideas moving forward when devising and creating their own pieces.
Lots of hard-hitting themes were presented in the play, giving us an excellent forum to discuss, express and explore them and also, for our GCSE students, to make comparisons between our set text of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ as we have to consider the original setting of the play in the 16th century as part of the written component.
As always, our students were impeccable in their behaviour and had an excellent evening.
Thanks to Mr Bullas, Mr Fisher and Mr Simpson for their time and support too.