Oxford Playscripts: The Terrible Fate of Humpty Dumpty

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The two plays that we have looked at were ‘The Terrible Fate Of Humpty Dumpty’ and ‘Blue Remembered Hills’. Both of these plays had a similar plot and theme. The themes that carried out throughout the pair of these plays were children, death, bullying, peer pressure and cruelty. Knowledge organisers- For this unit and the other units that the learners will explore throughout the year In this Unit students will learn about mime and silent performance. They will work in groups large and small developing their mime skills and creating original performances. Students will carefully consider the importance of body language, facial expression, clarity and exaggeration in their mime work and will consider expressing emotion and representing objects through mime.

This Unit is based on the poem ‘The Identification’ by Roger McGough, about a boy, Stephen who is killed in an explosion. Students will practically explore the poem and develop their own ideas about who Stephen is and why his father reacts as he does to the news of his son’s death. Using the text and the themes raised in it students will devise and perform original pieces of drama and evaluate the work produced.As Audrey does this Angela joins in which makes Audrey feel secure and they continue to tease Donald until the end of the scene when Donald is on all fours crying. The actors play the roles of children very well as they do little things such as, crossing their arms, swaying around a bit and Audrey kept on playing with the bottom of her skirt. The costume that the cast wears fits very well with the time that the play is set. They are wearing dull greys and blues, the girls are wearing skirts while the boys are wearing short trousers and shirts. The play that we chose to compare The Terrible Fate of Humpty Dumpty with was called Blue Remembered Hills. This was originally designed for television but was adapted for the theatre in 1984 by a man called Dennis Potter. It is set in the West Country around the time of WW2. The themes are much the same as The Terrible Fate of Humpty Dumpty as there is a lot of bullying, cruelty and peer pressure that shows how cruel children can be. Also it ends with an individual being killed by a group. This Unit introduces students to drama in Y7. It helps them to develop the confidence, group work skills and imagination necessary to develop in the subject. They gain knowledge and understanding of the performance technique physical theatre and learn how to recognise it in a performance. Students also get to know their new form well by working in a variety of groups. Performance skills they develop are physical theatre and narration. A detailed SOW - which discusses: Broad aim, Number of lessons, Duration of lessons, Assessment plan, Referenced core texts, potential safeguarding, Differentiation strategies, developing of Maths and English, How equality and diversity is promoted, how SEN learners will be supported and how learners will develop personal, social and employability skills - AS WELL AS ALL LESSONS IN DETAIL

These Drama resources are unit suitable to go alongside the script The Terrible Fate of Humpty Dumpty KS3 (year 7)- A script with themes such as bullying. I think that the layout of the stage fitted really well with the play, as it was not a naturalistic play so the big blue tree represents childhood and imagination well. Also the director made good use of the gate. Throughout the play it was used as an entrance and exit, but in the last scene it is used as the door of the barn that Donald gets trapped behind. I think that this works well, as it would not be possible to light a fire on stage. In the last scene there is also a good use of the lighting as there is a red gel put over the light to make it look like a fire on stage. This is our layout for scene 5. As you can see there are a lot less seats. This is because there are only ‘Terry’s parents’ talking to the audience, on stage throughout the scene. Whilst in the other two scenes there are five people on stage, so there was the need for more seating props. As we could not really have a pylon for someone to climb we had to picture a spot that we could imagine was the pylon. One thing that I think our group was especially good at was involving the audience. Not only did we use one of the audience members as ‘Terry’ but also at the end of our last scene we finished it with the bulling taking place in between the rows of audience. In the opening scene, the bullies and 'hanger-on' Sammy are pressuring Terry into climbing a pylon (electrical building) to go after one of the bullies' Frisbee. To prove he's not a coward, poor Terry climbs the pylon but gets electrocuted. He dies - this is the Terrible Fate of Humpty Dumpty. In this Unit students gain knowledge and understanding of the Greek Myth Persephone, whilst, developing and broadening their performance skills. They will consider the different characters in the story and the purpose of the myth. Much of the work in this unit is devised and pupils are introduced to a range of performance techniques including narration, physical theatre, sound effects, hot seating and improvisation. They will also develop interpersonal skills by working in large groups.