Comedy and Shakespeare for Kids
The government has said they would like to see children in schools have five hours of culture a week. If you felt that politicians themselves absorbed anything like half an hour of culture a week this nannyish fantasy might mean something.
And I tend to think that more sports and less obesity should be a first priority. Still, the theatre industry is more than ready to help out the government, and the children, and has been for many years. James Campbell, whose stand-up show “Comedy 4 Kids” has been seen all round the world, has a lovely little play on at the Soho Theatre called Cutlery Wars.
These wars — “I am the king of the forks” — are played out by two short-trousered adult actors as boys on the brink of their passport to the secondary school level (”I’m looking forward to having hairy legs”).
On the edge of the playing field, where sport is passing them by, they exchange notes on prepubescent crises and act out not only the war of the forks, knives and spoons, but also the story of Humpty Dumpty. How could all the king’s horses even try to put old Humpty together again? They have hooves. Lobsters or small Indonesian children would be more use.
The piece is delightfully acted by Benjamin Smith and Peter Ashmore, who pull off that rare trick of acting young without being patronising or stupid about it. Not talking down to youngsters is the best way of commanding their attention.
This much at least is realised by the RSC Learning department, which has published a manifesto for Shakespeare in Schools recommending that children should be introduced to the Bard at no later age than eleven: “Do it on your feet; see it live; start it earlier.”
I was intrigued to see Benedict Nightingale in The Times applauding the RSC renewed initiative while welcoming a new series of comic book cartoon versions of Shakespeare, some of them with simplified versions of the texts, which surely defeats the whole object of the exercise.
These comics are nothing new. There was a marvellous series of unabridged, unexpurgated cartoon Shakespeare published over twenty years ago, but I’m not sure how much of an impact they made.
Perhaps with the RSC moving seriously into primary schools the time has come again for such brilliant Shakespearean illustrators as Von, John H Howard and Oscar Zarate, and indeed the new Japanese-style, English language series from Manga.
Meanwhile, watch out for the Cutlery Wars, which take place in the imaginary world of the dining room table, overseen by the gods of the holy salt and pepper pots, where the hegemony of the forks is threatened not so much by the knives as the determined band of teaspoons who are fighting dirty with new tactics involving the secret weapon of the ladle…
