Shakespeare's COMEDY OF ERRORS
Highgate Birmingham Education Action Zone
Years 5, 6 and 7

We developed this project as a means of introducing older primary school pupils to Shakespeare's work: our year 7 pupils had no problem enthusiastically joining in. COMEDY OF ERRORS was chosen because we felt it to be an unusual choice, the text is relatively simple and it offers many possibilities for improvisations and improvised scenes. All participants were self-selecting.

The young people were introduced to a synopsis of the plot and then to certain key scenes within it. They were offered flexible scenarios so they could improvise their own stories around the scenes and then use these as points of reference when short sections of Shakespeare's text were read as a whole group activity.

An additional element was included when looking at the servant and master relationship. We considered this in the light of clowns. A clown specialist was brought in and the young people created their own red-nose clown using items of clothing borrowed or brought in. They created their own clown routines. The main outcomes were:

• Young people who had a user-friendly introduction to a Shakespeare play and who had an initial introduction to Shakespeare text.
• Young people who had an understanding of how the text relates to story-telling and life today.
• Young people who had experienced an introduction to the development of a clown and the clown's relationship with himself/herself, his or her own physicality and the clown's relationship with an audience.

It quickly became clear that there would be further outcomes:

• Young people who are aware of the need for self discipline within a drama context
• Young people who are aware of the need for group discipline within a drama context.

This was a challenging project for the young people but around 25 pupils turned up for 5 days working solidly from 10.00 - 15.00: it speaks for itself.