Year 13 English Literature trip to London
‘Tis Pity, the play that we are studying as part of the A2 English Literature syllabus, is not often performed- so you can imagine our surprise and excitement when we learned of our trip to The Globe in London to see it! ‘Tis Pity is a Jacobean tragedy, centred on the forbidden love of Annabella and Giovanni- essentially Romeo and Juliet with sex, drugs and rock and roll. Bizarrely, for a play written in the 17th Century, exploring rather abstract themes, ‘Tis Pity managed to remain relatable to us: one of the most striking ways in which it appealed to the audience was through its use of northern and southern accents to denote social class.
The Sam Wanamaker Play House was therefore an ideal venue for such an intimate play: the audience were so close to the play that they were part of the action- the singers mingled amongst audience, the banditti ran around us and one of the characters died so close to an audience member that the prospect of her expensive looking clothes becoming stained with synthetic blood was rather evident from her horrified expression! The Globe’s use of candle lighting and music simply added to the ambiance of the play: the snuffing of the candles and the music worked effectively to create the simultaneously tense and hilarious death scene of Bergetto, John Ford’s Boris Johnson.
Theatre in a uniquely tangible art form, allowing the audience to experience the characters and events in a profoundly intimate way. Unlike the edited and polished Hollywood films, to which we’ve grown so accustomed, theatre is an entirely human art form, with mistakes and quirks that heighten the sense of realism and make the characters relatable: from Hippolita forgetting her line, to Soranzo’s blood pack making an almighty spurting noise!
We were also fortunate enough to have the chance to see “Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red” an installation at the Tower of London by the artist Paul Cummins, with 888,246 Poppies, one for each dead British or Colonial soldier. The installation is an incredibly moving one, as it allows us to make some redeemable sense of the sheer waste of life that occurs in wars- and those who were in the Remembrance assembly would have heard Mr Moodie’s voice heavy with sorrow as he read… It was Connor McGrath’s quoting of Aldous Huxley in the Remembrance Assembly that perfectly summarised the spirit of the installation and Remembrance: “That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history.”
Undoubtedly, though, the highlight of the trip was Mr Lawrence’s *unique* taste in music!
Gurdeep Mall
