Interview with Cophtill School Kids

today i went into Cophtill school, which is a local school near me and i know they put on productions of Shakespeare. I managed to speak to them for about 20 minutes at the end of the day. I was amazing to talk to these kids because they were so intellectual, i was anticipating me having to drag answers out of them but once we got onto the topic of Shakespeare you couldnt shut them up!

Who i interviewed: Catherine Golby - 10, Sarah Stevenette - 10, Ben Dimbleby - 10 and Arianna Weaving - 10 ( All of them in year 6)

Question 1:

So did you enjoy performing Macbeth (The latest production they had done)

- Yes, we hadn't done anything like it before and it was good to do something new.

- It was a completely different atmosphere to when we did the cowboys and indians play

- It was something different to a normal play

Question 2:

Did you find it easy speaking Shakespeare?

- Slightly harder than what we are used to

- Used to ordinary speaking plays so a big change

- Easier when everyones doing it, helps with understanding the meaning and the context

- You get used to it

- You being to use other words to help work out what other words mean

- (the recited a speech to me, which meant they could remember it, that was impressive)

- Mrs. Russell (teacher) went through the words and explained the meanings to us to help us understand what the play mean for example, stage = life not the stage you walk on

Question 3:

Did you find it easy to learn the scripts?

- Few more weeks to learn and it was better in situation

- Actions helped to understand the words

- Slow at first but gradually picked it up

- Pronunciation was hard too but when you start to perform it gets easier

Question 4:

Do you enjoy learning about Shakespeare?

- Enjoy he whole thing, its nice doing something from a different angle

- It nice doing something that everyone else knows and can appreciate

Question 5:

Don't think your too young to perform Shakespeare?

- No, no ones too young

- Adapting to different rules but its fun

- The cowboys and indians play was easy whereas this challenged us

- Theres a sense of grandeur with Macbeth and his other plays

Other comments:

Ben - "He was a heavy duty writer, and you have to know his stuff to get into his stories"

"once you know some things its easy to learn more"

I also asked if any of them had been to see any plays at Tolethorpe this year, and Sarah had, this is what she had to say:

" I've been to see Othello, there was a lot of drama going on but i understood it... this was because of the stuff we had learned here so it made it easier to follow"