Skellig by David Almond

A poignant play and a useful addition to your stimulus texts across all Key Stages

David Almond's novel Skellig was published in 1998, subsequently adapted for stage by the author and first performed in 2003. The play follows Michael, who is excited for his family to be moving house, but his baby sister is critically ill, leaving his parents frantic and distracted and Michael helpless.

In the dilapidated garage of the new house, Michael discovers Skellig; strange, something like a beast, something like a bird, something like an angel, and Michael fears that Skellig is dying. With his friend Mina, Michael sets out to help Skellig before the garage is demolished and Skellig is discovered, while desperately hoping that his infant sister will survive.

Skellig is a really touching story and fans of the novel will be drawn to the play. The dialogue is straightforward and often fast-paced. It's a small cast with four male and six female roles but some of the parts such as school friends and teachers could be played by any member of your cohort.

Although Skellig is described as ‘he’, the role could be taken on by any cast member and it might be interesting to explore having different people take on the role or to create Skellig with an ensemble. In contrast to the dialogue, the narration in the play often feels quite poetic and dreamlike, and it would work very well to use an ensemble to create a chorus for the narration. The chorus might evolve throughout the piece and could include school children, neighbours, medical professionals and so on.

Skellig offers a lot of opportunity for classwork as well as being a performance text. After performing from the text there are lots of ways to use the play for off-text work with plenty of chances for students to improvise, recreate scenes, extend what happens, create monologues, explore characters’ inner thoughts and hot seat, as well as the fun that could be had with the narration from the text.

Skellig is ideally suited for KS3; themes include friendship, trust, love, life and death which feel very relevant for KS3, but the text could also lend itself for exploration at KS4 and 5 using the character of Skellig, the narration, or points of conflict as the stimulus for devised ensemble work or practitioner-focused work, for example exploring Michael's frustration and anger at his feelings of helplessness through a Frantic Assembly-inspired movement sequence.