Press Releases
Shakespeare Festival
By Claire
Jun 10, 2007 - 3:54:32 PM

Eighteen children from Dolphin School in Hurst aged between ten and thirteen performed an abridged version of Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’ at Farnham Maltings Arts Centre on Friday 9^th February as part of the Shakespeare Schools Festival, the UK’s largest youth drama festival. On Saturday 27^th January the children were very privileged to have Kenneth Branagh lead a three hour rehearsal at the school with their teacher, Judy Seall, giving the children invaluable advice and encouragement!

Judy Seall, Head of Drama at Dolphin said, “It was an inspiring experience to work with one of the world’s leading Shakespearean directors with his broad knowledge of the text and attention to detail. Ken and Jimmy put the children entirely at their ease and were open and inspiring with their ideas and seemed to be really enjoying themselves as well!”

The performance evening itself will be extra special for the children because they won the 11-14 photography competition run by the Festival organisers of their production in rehearsal and it will be published in the national programme available at Farnham Maltings and other participating theatres on the night.

The children have been rehearsing hard for many weeks and are really looking forward to the performance which will include four pieces of music specially written by Dolphin’s Head of Music, David Cooper for the songs Shakespeare wrote into the play.

Sophie Eager, aged twelve who plays Alonso, the King of Naples in the production said, “It has been a lot of fun preparing our performance. I think the Festival is a great idea because Shakespeare is so much easier to understand when you act it out.”

A staggering 25000 children from 1,050 schools will perform in 107 professional theatres across the country during the period 29^th January to 10^th February. Four schools perform at any one theatre on any one evening. There were fifteen specially adapted half-hour Shakespeare plays for the schools to choose from.

Jimmy Yuill is a Scottish actor and member of the Royal Shakespeare Company and then later of the Renaissance Theatre Company, founded by Kenneth Branagh. He has appeared in many of Kenneth Branagh's Shakespeare films, most recently as Corin in the 2006 adaptation of As You Like It. He is possibly best known for the character Doug Kersey in the British television show Wycliffe. The bulk of his acting work has been in the theatre. In June 2006 he made his first appearance in EastEnders as the recurring character Victor Brown.