Drama

The drama department provides a vibrant and exciting learning environment.

In year 9 students are taught drama, in years 10 and 11 both GCSE Drama and BTEC Performing Arts are taught and in the sixth form students can study AS and A2 Drama and Theatre Studies.

Students enjoy studying drama because of the opportunity it provides to develop leadership, listening and negotiation skills and creative thinking skills.

As well as lessons in school students also take part in theatre trips and workshops with professional actors and performers. In addition we take part in an annual European theatre festival in Poggibonsi, Tuscany, Italy.

Year 11: Baby Girl on 17th November

Year 11 presents scenes from Baby Girl by Roy Williams, in the Drama Studio 5pm - 8pm, cost £1 on Tuesday 17th November.

Theatre Visit to see War Horse

Wednesday 25th November: depart Ashlyns 17.30 Return 23.15.

War Horse Theatre Trip Letter - 19th November

Year 9, GCSE and BTEC Theatre Visit to see WAR HORSE at The New London Theatre on Wednesday 25 November 2009.

'So exhilarating it makes you rejoice to be alive. Its sheer skill and invention are awe-inspiring.' The Times

'War Horse only confirms the National's extraordinary knack of turning  literature into the finest drama.  Stunning.’ Sunday Times

'An extraordinary piece of theatre which is both epic and intimate. Guaranteed to move the heart.' Sunday Express

At the outbreak of World War One, Joey, young Albert's beloved horse, is sold to the cavalry and shipped to France. He's soon caught up in enemy fire, and fate takes him on an extraordinary odyssey, serving on both sides before finding himself alone in no man's land. But Albert cannot forget Joey and, still not old enough to enlist, he embarks on a treacherous mission to find him and bring him home.

The National Theatre's production of War Horse is an adaptation by Nick Stafford of the 1982 novel by Michael Morpurgo. The former Children’s Laureate has written more than 100 books for children. He says it was an encounter with an old man in his local pub in Devon that gave him the idea for War Horse.

'"I was there in 1916," the old man told me, his eyes filling with tears. "I was there with the horses too." He talked for hours about the horse he'd loved and left behind at the end of the war, how the old horse had been sold off to the French butchers for meat.
Joey and the other horses in the show are truly magnificent creations by the Handspring Puppet Company which don't aim for picturesque realism but with their wooden framework, translucent fabric skins, and extraordinary mobility somehow capture the very essence of everything equine.

This is much more than a puppet show, however. Nick Stafford's powerful adaptation of Morpurgo's novel, which wisely ditches Joey's narrative and tells the story through dialogue among the human characters, brilliantly captures not only the mysterious and intense relationship that can exist between humans and animals, but also the dreadful waste and terror of the Great War.

Like the poems of Wilfred Owen, this often virtuosic production, superbly designed by Rae Smith, brilliantly lit by Paule Constable captures "the pity of war, the pity war distilled". The sight of horses and sword-brandishing soldiers charging across no-man's land into great blasts of machine gun fire encapsulates the futility of the conflict.

“Magnificent” The Guardian