|
Post by Deleted on Aug 24, 2017 14:55:55 GMT
I got in a huge argument with my AS Level English Literature tutor over my interpretation of Death of a Salesman. The details escape me now but she kept saying "that's not what Miller was going for" and I'd say "sorry, were you a friend of his?" I still subscribe to the Death of the Author approach to this day. Oh while we're talking arguing with tutors, my favourite to this day is with my PhD supervisor who when reading some analysis of the 'Man in the Park' scene in Angels (for the uninitiated it involves gentlemen cruising The Ramble in Central Park) And I commented on the 'humour' in the scene, and of the particular exchange 'Relax...' 'Not a chance'
Turns out supervisor was a bit 'unfamiliar' with the um...mechanics of the situation....I declined to explain it in detail.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Aug 24, 2017 15:10:31 GMT
HEY! Jonah Man Jazz was AWESOME!
|
|
|
Post by oxfordsimon on Aug 24, 2017 15:57:23 GMT
we did the Daniel Jazz inmusic. Reminds me of that limp "Jonah Man Jazz" that some of the, well, less intellectually gifted kids thought was better than "Joseph." Saps. Nineveh city was a city of sin The jazzing and the jiving made a terrible din Beat groups playing rock and roll And the Lord he said 'Bless My Soul' Such great lyrics. We also did 'Rooster Rag' which was based on the Nun Priest's Tale
|
|
18,777 posts
|
Post by BurlyBeaR on Aug 24, 2017 16:18:08 GMT
I dint go too skool
|
|
2,302 posts
|
Post by Tibidabo on Aug 24, 2017 17:10:06 GMT
Well you obviously learnt the bear necessities elsewhere....
|
|
3,471 posts
|
Post by showgirl on Aug 24, 2017 18:09:44 GMT
For O Level we did Macbeth, The Pardoner's Tale and, I think, The Crucible. The teacher wasn't that good so A Level, taught by the head of department, was much better. We did Hamlet, some ghastly Yeats (but the other A Level class had texts I thought were worse), Sons & Lovers and The Shoemakers' Holiday, which last was great fun to read aloud but seems unknown now.
|
|
3,926 posts
|
Post by Dawnstar on Aug 24, 2017 19:35:51 GMT
I can't remember everything we studied You're lucky. I can remember all the books & plays I studied in English & I wish I could forget some of them! Plays: Year 7 A Midsummer's Night's Dream, Year 8 The Tempest, Year 9 The Merchant of Venice & Romeo and Juliet, GCSE Macbeth & An Inspector Calls. I detested the last two. I've always preferred comedies. Our school drama competition mercifully got cancelled during my time there but not before I'd lurked in the background as a schoolgirl in scenes from A Little Princess & got out of being in scenes from Pygmalion by organising the costumes. The aforesaid drama competition was also the location of my first ever mid-show walk out. Well, not exactly mid show, I lasted probably under 2 minutes of scenes from Sweeney Todd before walking out. I was lucky with my GCSE 19th century novel option with Sense and Sensibility as I like Austen. Some groups had to do Dickens (who I'm so-so on) or Hardy (who I dislike). I hated the 20th century novel, Of Mice and Men. In previous years we'd already done The Great Gatsby & To Kill a Mockingbird. Collectively they engendered in me a lifelong detestation of novels dealing with the destruction of the American Dream & I don't think I've read a single American novel since finishing GCSE English.
|
|
3,471 posts
|
Post by showgirl on Aug 25, 2017 3:37:43 GMT
It's terrible - and ironic - that studying Eng Lit at school can put you off it - or parts of it - for life. I thank school for my enduring love of theatre as despite some diabolical trips to dire and boring plays, I loved reading plays aloud in class (most didn't and all the boys were dreadful - reluctant and unable even to read confidently, let alone with expression); loved participating in the annual house drama comp and chose and directed the winning entry in my final year. Then it was university to study languages and very amateur play-reviewing for the student mag.
|
|
397 posts
|
Post by maggiem on Aug 25, 2017 11:31:41 GMT
Primary School, late sixties/early seventies had us troop into the hall to listen to 'the school radio', usually a programme called 'music and movement' where you pretended to be trees and stuff whilst trying to retain at least some semblance of four year old dignity.* As Tvcream explain "Arcane Swiss sociology exported as near-naked prancing on splintering wooden floors. For decades after World War Two primary school kids had their cognitive skills ostensibly honed by the aural equivalent of cod liver oil: a frosty-voiced BBC matron encouraging them to act out an activity in time with a piece of music picked out in lacklustre fashion on a battered piano. Quick, get into a space, it's time to do ‘our wide dance’." www.tvcream.co.uk/bric-a-brac/a-m-bric-a-brac/m-is-for-bric-a-brac/music-and-movement/* For music it was 'Singing Together', with such glories as 'Michael Finnegan'. Now this is my era too. Country dancing (Virginia Reel , anyone?), classical record playing as we came in for assembly (Mozart French Horn Rondo), and Singing Together (Lillibulero... "there was an old woman who lived in a basket, seventeen times as high as the moon...") Great memories. Back on topic ... O level - "Henry V" (I've loved "upon the king" before Agincourt ever since "And what art thou, thou idol ceremony?") A Level - "Coriolanus" (not everybody's choice, I think, but I'm still in 2 minds all these years later as to how noble/ignorant he is. Take your pick). Also "Miller's "A view from the Bridge" (a wonderful modern day Greek tragedy) Degree level- "Measure for Measure", and Ibsen's "Hedda Gabler" (problems, problems).
|
|
3,926 posts
|
Post by Dawnstar on Aug 25, 2017 11:56:58 GMT
"When a Knight Played For Spurs," "Lay down my flannel and soap, down by the bath side" - would both get you chucked out. Were they deliberate changes then rather than mondegreens?
|
|
4,950 posts
|
Post by TallPaul on Aug 25, 2017 12:25:22 GMT
Growing up in the Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire in the 1980s, the classics were considered to be far too bourgeois to be either taught, or visited on school trips. We didn't even have to study English Literature if we didn't want to, so I didn't. As for a school uniform, forget it.
We did have a drama department, if it can be called that, housed in a Potakabin in the car park, led by the rather eccentric Mr Firth, who drove an orange kit car, obvs. If we performed anything, it would have been agitprop.
|
|
53 posts
|
Post by harrie on Aug 25, 2017 20:24:12 GMT
For GCSE we did The Merchant of Venice and An Inspector Calls, enjoyed both. For A Level we did Richard III (enjoyed but it did put me off reading anything that shows you a family tree at the beginning for a while), Doctor Faustus (teacher wasn't very good so never felt I understood/knew what was going on) and Othello, which I loved. As for school shows it was the usual, Annie, Oliver and so on.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Aug 25, 2017 21:39:46 GMT
At college i played the Bridegroom in Lorca's Blood Wedding. I was the campest groom you could meet. Its a thankless role.
We also did The Duchess of Malfi and i was thhe Cardinal.
Serious drama's weren't my thing. At all.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Aug 25, 2017 21:44:49 GMT
Reminds me of that limp "Jonah Man Jazz" that some of the, well, less intellectually gifted kids thought was better than "Joseph." Saps. Nineveh city was a city of sin The jazzing and the jiving made a terrible din Beat groups playing rock and roll And the Lord he said 'Bless My Soul' Such great lyrics. We also did 'Rooster Rag' which was based on the Nun Priest's Tale OMG. Those are the only lyrics i still remember from Jonah Man Jazz!
|
|
|
Post by oxfordsimon on Aug 25, 2017 23:00:58 GMT
I have the score to it somewhere.
And Captain Noah and His Amazing Floating Zoo
|
|
2,955 posts
|
Post by crowblack on Aug 26, 2017 9:27:27 GMT
Captain Noah and His Amazing Floating Zoo I'd completely forgotten about that. Captain Noah and his genocidal deity- what a bloody weird thing to make children celebrate in song. They censored 'Joseph' a bit (no Potiphar's wife, just a random jailing) but still had to explain the word 'fratricide' to us, in primary school.
|
|
|
Post by oxfordsimon on Aug 26, 2017 10:28:07 GMT
There is a Naxos recording of Jonah, Rooster and others by Michael Hurd under the title of Pop Cantatas.
It might just have slipped into my Amazon basket...
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Aug 26, 2017 10:43:28 GMT
Honourable mention here to RADA tutors for putting me off Hamlet for nearly a decade (Hiddles want to have a word?) and to The Wooster Group for having the honour of the first play I fell asleep in (also Hamlet) which I feel was a cardinal theatrical sin, but it was hella hot in there, and we'd got the 6am Eurostar and their version is about 45 minutes longer than the average Hamlet....zzzzz
|
|
2,302 posts
|
Post by Tibidabo on Aug 26, 2017 12:06:26 GMT
Did someone mention Hiddles Hamlet? 🎉🔛🔜✌️
|
|
4,950 posts
|
Post by TallPaul on Aug 26, 2017 12:08:28 GMT
I've heard 'it' called some things in my time, but never that, even on Naked Attraction!!
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Aug 26, 2017 12:10:39 GMT
for putting me off Hamlet for nearly a decade (Hiddles want to have a word?) Thought you said, "putting me off" not "getting me off with"? hahaha it's an easy mistake to make....(though for the record, Hiddles doesn't do much for me...)
|
|
1,093 posts
|
Post by samuelwhiskers on Aug 26, 2017 12:29:23 GMT
Honourable mention here to RADA tutors for putting me off Hamlet for nearly a decade (Hiddles want to have a word?) and to The Wooster Group for having the honour of the first play I fell asleep in (also Hamlet) which I feel was a cardinal theatrical sin, but it was hella hot in there, and we'd got the 6am Eurostar and their version is about 45 minutes longer than the average Hamlet....zzzzz I wish I'd fallen asleep during Troilus and Cressida...
|
|
|
Post by oxfordsimon on Aug 26, 2017 13:15:53 GMT
Honourable mention here to RADA tutors for putting me off Hamlet for nearly a decade (Hiddles want to have a word?) and to The Wooster Group for having the honour of the first play I fell asleep in (also Hamlet) which I feel was a cardinal theatrical sin, but it was hella hot in there, and we'd got the 6am Eurostar and their version is about 45 minutes longer than the average Hamlet....zzzzz I wish I'd fallen asleep during Troilus and Cressida... Don't get me started on The Wooster Group. I haven't got enough pills to calm me down
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Aug 26, 2017 16:26:06 GMT
I wish I'd fallen asleep during Troilus and Cressida... Don't get me started on The Wooster Group. I haven't got enough pills to calm me down You know how there are some plays/directors/companies that you think 'hey with time maybe it's time to give them another go?' It's been 10 years I haven't felt the urge. I will say their Hamlet was a most excellent ginger though. Which is something I look for in a production obviously.
|
|
2,706 posts
|
Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Aug 26, 2017 17:14:01 GMT
The Wooster Group are a prime example of what happens when theatre is unsubsidised. They have had little to push them out of their sixties mindset and so audiences are given a sclerotic sense of what theatre can be and a separation between more experimental and commercial theatre that does not exist, because of the funding system, in the UK.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Aug 27, 2017 16:44:35 GMT
Growing up near Stratford-upon-Avon we did not study any Shakespeare! Only play I recall was J B Priestley's When we are Married which I enjoyed and Priestley had lived in village near Stratford. Looking at RSC website re teaching of Shakey cdn2.rsc.org.uk/sitefinity/education-pdfs/articles-and-reports/rsc-education-history-of-teaching-shakespeare.pdf?sfvrsn=2"Up until (and for many people, even after) the introduction of Shakespeare as the only compulsory author on the National Curriculum in the early 1990s, the view that Shakespeare was not for everyone remained widely held. Shakespeare was standard fare for independent and grammar school pupils, but more often than not avoided in Secondary Moderns and Comprehensives" (I went to Sec Modern) Re Wooster Group Troilus & Cressida at the RSC - I actually liked it .........
|
|
5,582 posts
|
Post by lynette on Aug 27, 2017 17:51:20 GMT
Never heard of the Wooster Group. Enlighten me.
|
|