The Phileas Fogg Theatre Company were here again, this time with a performance of Romeo and Juliet with and for our 2tto students. Because of Covid-19 we had a daytime workshop in two rounds in which this dramatic romance story by William Shakespeare (1564-1616) was rehearsed and performed under the superb guidance of our actors Ben and Jen.

Our students were split into two groups, roughly the Capulets and the Montagues, the feuding families in Shakespeare’s play. They then rehearsed their half of the play and had to convince Ben and Jen, and the audience (this time only consisting of a few teachers) that they could turn the whole thing into something worth watching. And did they succeed? A ‘yes’ is in order here.

Obviously, there were quite a few lines to be read, quite a few stage skills to be learnt (sword fighting, lying dead, being dramatic, and the like), but on the whole our students took it all in their stride.

Of course some had to overdo things a little but then exaggeration is one way of turning a dialogue into something worth acclaiming and remembering. And others were helped to overcome their natural shyness to shine (word pun, aha!) by means of extremely ingeniously selected disguises, making them instantly unrecognisable.

Of course, Shakespeare wouldn’t be Shakespeare without a few dead bodies, so we had a fair selection of those cleaning the floor as well. And, to cap(ulet!) it all (word pun number 2, aha!) Radio Verona did intervene a couple of times with the latest (?) 15^th century news on the everlasting battle between the feuding families.

And after some slow motion dance moves the party came to a dead end (Yep, numero tres, thank you), with both Ben and Jen earning their money in the easiest way possible, leaving all our poor students to do the rest of the acting all on their own.

Once again we hope everyone enjoyed themselves and to see you again next time.