Bardwatching: Spring Term 2 2020-21

Thou damned and luxurious mountain goat…

The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust has launched a collection of free online resources and activities for young people to do at home during the latest lockdown. A suite of over 300 education resources and activities are now available on the Trust's website to support teachers and inspire home learners with Shakespeare's works.

Developed by the Trust's award-winning education team, the resources are in line with the national curriculum for Key Stage 1, 2 and 3, offering fun and imaginative ways for children age 4 – 14 to engage with Shakespeare – from building LEGO Shakespeare and drawing a comic strip inspired by The Tempest, to creating a gruesome recipe for a witches’ spell from Macbeth and describing a scene from Romeo & Juliet in Juliet's diary. There's also (crucial in the engaging of young people with the Bard) a Shakespeare-style insult generator to provide entertainment during playtime.

All resources and activities are available free of charge and accessible online without the need to register. Many are presented as paperless resources for those without a printer at home, including three-minute Snappy Shakespeare plays and video tutorials. Budding chefs can whip up delicious recipes that Shakespeare would have eaten as a boy.

The Trust, also organisers of the annual national Shakespeare Week celebration in primary schools, will be taking the events of that programme online this year. Running from 15-21 March, Shakespeare Week will carry the theme of Wellbeing, featuring a programme of emotional wellbeing activities and online events inspired by Shakespeare's works. Full details to be announced.

www.shakespeare.org.uk/education/home-learning

So we'll live, and pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh…

From 30 January-21 February 2021, Shakespeare's Globe is running ‘Telling Tales’ workshops and storytellings on Zoom for young people from aged 3 up to teenage years. Interactive and available on various dates for at-home learners in various age brackets, the schedule is as follows:

30 Jan-19 Feb A Midsummer Night's Dream Puppetry Workshop (age 3+)

30 Jan-21 Feb Twelfth Night Storytelling (age 5-12)

30 Jan-20 Feb Macbeth Storytelling (age 5-12)

30 Jan-20 Feb Macbeth Workshop (age 9-12)

30 Jan-19 Feb Romeo and Juliet Storytelling (age 8-12)

30 Jan-19 Feb Romeo and Juliet Workshop (age 8-12)

6-19 Feb A Midsummer Night's Dream Storytelling (age 5-12)

6-21 Feb The Winter's Tale Storytelling (age 5-12)

6-19 Feb A Midsummer Night's Dream Workshop (age 5-8)

13-21 Feb Macbeth Workshop (age 12+)

13-16 Feb Romeo and Juliet Workshop (age 12+)

14-18 Feb A Midsummer Night's Dream Workshop (age 9-12)

16 Feb The Tempest Workshop (age 9-12)

16-20 Feb The Tempest Storytelling (age 5-12)

17-20 Feb The Tempest Workshop (age 5-8)

17 Feb Henry V Storytelling (age 5-12)

21 Feb The Winter's Tale Workshop (age 9-12)

21 Feb Twelfth Night Workshop (age 5-8)

17-20 Feb The Tempest Workshop (age 5-8)

21 Feb Twelfth Night Workshop (age 5-8)

www.shakespearesglobe.com/seasons/telling-tales-2021

Look, he's winding up the watch of his wit; by and by it will strike…

The ongoing pandemic is a period of relative darkness for all of us, into which various shafts of light have been thrown – see page 11 to read about an unexpected positive impact for international teachers of drama in particular, for example.

The chief light, of course, is the one at the end of the tunnel, shone by the growing collection of approved vaccines being rolled out across the UK. It will not have escaped the notice of many that the second person to receive their first dose of the Pfizer vaccine was one William Shakespeare of Warwickshire, who received his jab at University Hospital Coventry, just 20 miles from Stratford-upon-Avon.

This, naturally, caused Twitter to spring into action: another source of light at various times over the past year (unless you followed a certain now-silenced ex-President). ‘Two Gentlemen of Corona’, people quipped, asking whether if Margaret Keenan was patient 1A that made Mr Shakespeare ‘2B, or not 2B?’ The best pun has to have been ‘The Taming of the Flu’, and let's hope, indeed, that that taming takes effect as soon as possible. There have, inevitably, been those who've remarked upon the choosing and announcing of this particular recipient as being some kind of government PR stunt, but we at Bardwatching feel that even were that the case, it's been worth it to cheer us all up a bit – and we're glad the great man was given early consideration in the immunisation process.