It was a sad day for Drama teachers everywhere the day Stephen Merchant's infamous GCSE Drama sketch disappeared from YouTube. Personally this was the cornerstone of my ‘Introduction to GCSE’. For those who have not seen it, Merchant claims to have found a sketch, written by his 14-year-old self, for his Drama GCSE. Thankfully it is available on Amazon for a snip at £2.99 and I strongly recommend getting hold of a copy. In the sketch, Merchant mercilessly ridicules all the painful GCSE Drama clichés – the monotone chanting building to a crescendo, the covering of taboo topics, the painful set changes and the frequent, untimely use of ‘BLACKOUT'! A colleague recently also showed me a Saturday Night Live sketch starring Reese Witherspoon, similarly ripping the proverbial from GCSE habits which may also suffice. Show it to your Year 10, get them to create ‘the worst piece of drama ever’ and encourage them to get it all out of their system. In the past my classes have entertained with:
- Long, noisy set changes in the dark but when the lights come up, nothing has changed or someone scrapes a chair a few inches stage left
- Props or furniture on stage that are, at best, never used or, at worst, tripped over
- Plenty of Eastenders-style issues of which students have little or no knowledge
- Multi-role play denoted by the changing of a hat.
In my work as an associate with AQA, I was surprised by how many of the clichés are still true. It would seem that devising can be as much of a stumbling block for teachers as for the students. As teachers we have a responsibility to help our students negotiate the perils and pitfalls of devising. In the new AQA syllabus we can devise earlier and many of us have opted to do that in order to be able to devote more time in Year 11 to the written paper. But this comes at a price – students are more inexperienced and need more guidance. In order to ensure that your students produce an engaging piece of devised work which avoids the eye rolling clichés, my now worldly wise current year ten have come up with the following advice:
- Take your time choosing your topic – don't be afraid to experiment with different ideas
- Have a clear message and be specific with the topic you are covering – anything too vague or far-ranging will just confuse your audience
- Be patient with others – their idea may be better than your own
- Don't be negative – try not to say ‘no’ straight away without trying out an idea practically
- Do plenty of research – particularly if it is a serious topic of which you don't have any personal, first-hand experience
- If you choose a ‘clichéd’ topic, choose a style which lets you perform the piece in an interesting way
- Keep detailed notes all the way through the devising process (AQA students have to write a devising log to accompany their practical work)
- Don't give up, persevere and don't let the rest of the group do all the work!
Feedback from a Year 10 student‘The most valuable thing that I have learned is that I am in control of how much effort I put in. If I want it to be good, I have the power to make it good by putting in more effort, attending more rehearsals and responding to feedback'
While hindsight is a wonderful thing and I'm very pleased with the lessons my Year 10 have learned (hopefully a number of them will take this knowledge through to their A Level Drama studies and keep my job safe for a few more years), teachers must also take responsibility for the way in which they present the devised topic. For what it is worth, here are my dos and don'ts:
Do
Select stimuli which make them think differently – you reap what you sow. Give a pupil a picture of a lonely girl looking sad in a crowd and they'll come up with bullying. Instead, use more ambiguous images. This year we used pictures from Ewing Paddock's ‘Painting London Underground’ series. Or use a happy song instead of a miserable one. In the past, Three Steps to Heaven has produced a hilarious piece on dating advice. Sometimes, no matter what you give them, they'll still want to do the clichéd teenage issues – drugs, teenage pregnancy, eating disorders – but some might not. If they insist on going with the clichés then be strict with ‘how’ this is shown. The topic can be stereotypical but the form and style do not need to be.
Encourage the use of verbatim (personally I insist upon it, particularly if they are covering a mature theme of which they don't have any first-hand experience) This ensures that the dialogue is truthful which goes a long way to avoiding some of the commonplace platitudes.
Set strict time parameters for the length of the piece. Many moons ago, as I was leaving the theatre after a performance of Closer I overheard an elderly gentleman comment that the play had been just the sort he liked – ‘well acted and short'! Only let them go over the minimum time if what they have already is good.
Except for your most able students (and possibly even for them), avoid naturalism. Encourage the use of physical theatre as you can't go wrong by introducing them to the work of Frantic Assembly early on.
Make them familiar with the mark scheme – they need to know what they are aiming for and what will get them marks. This will also help to make your constructive criticism/advice/direction objective.
Take them to the theatre as much as possible – local am dram, live streams at the cinema – anything goes. They can learn from good as well as ‘bad’ examples. The videos by Splendid Theatre give some first-rate examples of non-naturalistic techniques which they can use while also showcasing some excellent acting.
Encourage the use of music to help vary the pace of a piece.
If curriculum time allows, build up devising skills from Year 7 onwards and run a practise devising unit in Year 9 so they can learn from their mistakes and their experiences can give them a more confident start in year ten.
Don't
- be afraid to tell them when something is not working – video them and get them to see for themselves
- let them embarrass themselves, if they can't bear to watch it – neither can the audience!
- let them forget about their dramatic intentions
- be worried about pushing them – they will thank you in the end
- worry about a practitioner – it just confuses them
- forget that this a learning process – at AQA, the performance is worth few marks so don't sweat it, just keep it ‘well-acted and short’.
Finally, as Stephen Merchant has shown us, don't let them use blackouts!