West End Theatre Company
visits for World Book Day
Alongside the tradition of dressing up as a beloved book character, pupils at Ashwicken were delighted to take to the stage for this year’s World Book Day.
Joined by West End in Schools theatre company, each class had the chance to take part in ‘Bringing Books to Life’ dance and drama workshops run by professional West End performers and choreographers. Created in the heart of London’s West End, the dance workshops gave children a unique insight into books by using dance and movement to tell the stories. Each class worked alongside a professional dancer to explore popular children’s books through movement.
Robbins and Owls' workshop focused on the story Dinosaurs and All That Rubbish by Michael Foreman:
A man gazes up into the sky and longs to visit the twinkling star which he sees in the distance. He is rich, powerful and owns lots of factories, so orders a rocket to be built to take him there, unconcerned about the pollution and waste this generates. His only focus is to reach the star, no matter what the cost.
When at last his rocket is ready, he blasts off into space, leaving behind mounds of burning rubbish. The heat from the smoldering waste wakes the dinosaurs who have lain dormant underground for centuries. They are horrified when they see the state of the planet and quickly set to work, clearing the rubbish to allow the natural world to take over once more.
Kingfishers and Chaffinches' workshop focused on the book The Iron Man by Ted Hughes:
The Iron Man arrives seemingly from nowhere. He first appears falling off a cliff, but his various pieces reassemble themselves, starting with his hands finding his eyes and progressing from there.
He eventually returns to the country and begins to feed on local farm equipment. Hogarth, a local boy, lures the Iron Man to the trap. The plan succeeds, and the Iron Man is buried alive. The next spring, the Iron Man digs himself free of the pit. To keep him out of the way, Hogarth brings the Iron Man to a scrap-heap to feast. The Iron Man promises not to cause further trouble for the locals, as long as no one troubles him.
Time passes, and the Iron Man is treated as merely another member of the community. However, astronomers monitoring the sky make a frightening new discovery: an enormous space-being, resembling a dragon, moving from orbit to land on Earth. The creature crashes heavily on Australia and demands that humanity provide him with food or he will take it by force.
Terrified, humans send their armies to destroy the dragon, but it is unharmed by their weapons. The Iron Man is transported to Australia where he challenges the creature to a contest of strength. If the Iron Man can withstand the heat of burning petroleum for longer than the creature can withstand the heat of the Sun, the creature must obey the Iron Man's commands forevermore: if the Iron Man melts or is afraid of melting before the space being undergoes or fears pain in the Sun, the creature has permission to devour the whole Earth.
After playing this game for two rounds, the alien creature admits defeat. When asked why he came to Earth, the dragon reveals that he is a peaceful "star spirit" who experienced excitement about the ongoing sights and sounds produced by the violent warfare of humanity. In his own life, he was a singer and the harmony of his kind that keeps the cosmos in balance in stable equilibrium.
The Iron Man orders the dragon to sing to the inhabitants of Earth to help soothe humanity toward a sense of peace. The beauty of his music causes the first worldwide lasting peace.
Kestrels' workshop focused on the book The Butterfly Lion by Michael Morpurgo:
A young boy named Michael runs away from a boarding school and meets an old lady living in a big cottage. She tells him about a boy named Bertie who lived in South Africa. As a boy, Bertie had found an orphaned white lion cub, but was eventually forced to send the lion away to the circus and leave South Africa to attend boarding school in Wiltshire, England.
Bertie escapes from his school and meets Millie, and the two become fast friends, flying kites together. He tells Millie all about his life in South Africa, and his white lion cub. When the pair leave school, they continue to write until war breaks out, and a letter arrives from Bertie informing Millie that he has joined the army.
Later, when fighting in France in the First World War, he saves two men's lives and is given a Victoria Cross. Millie, who has become a nurse in the hopes of finding Bertie, reads about him in a newspaper and the two are reunited. Together they discover that Monsieur Merlot's circus has closed down, but that the Frenchman lives nearby with the lion.
Bertie marries Millie and brings the lion back to England, where they live happily for many years. When the lion dies, Bertie and Millie carve a lion out of the chalk in the hillside in memorial, before Bertie dies himself.
After being told the story, Michael returns to school. He finds a plaque commemorating Bertie's heroic acts in the war, and learns from a teacher that Millie died only a few months after Bertie. Michael goes back to the house, finding it deserted. He then hears Millie's voice asking him to look after the chalk lion on the hill.