Review: Drama Games for classrooms and workshops

I love a good drama games book. Not because they are particularly revolutionary most of the time, but because as a drama teacher, I often get into a rut of playing the same games and am guilty of not utilising the full potential of games in the wider context of my lesson.

I think we all need to be reminded to use them as a tool to stimulate students into creating more dynamic work, instead of tacking them on to the start or end of a lesson. Swale trained under Max Stafford Clark and his foreword somewhat abruptly states that Swale’s book ‘makes no claim to be either comprehensive or original’. He then goes on to say that the games are instead a stimulus to ‘further invention and imagination’ and after having read the book would not be without it in his rehearsal room.