Scottish Nursery School Kids Bring A Comedic Shakespeare To The Fringe

A unique feature of Edinburgh’s Fringe festival is its inclusive nature. Professional and non-professional companies from Scotland and around the world can take part and jostle for the attention of festival goers. Critics are, of course, spoilt for choice. Who and what do you review and in which venues? In the end, given the 1300 shows on the programme, you might be persuaded by a company’s promotion, the editorial policy of the paper, magazine or blog you write for, or simply, you might ‘Unleash your Fringe’, as the slogan of the 2024 Fringe advises. In other words, just go wild and follow your own creative taste and interests. I am fascinated by the number of school and university groups which continue to make an appearance at each year’s Fringe, despite the obvious lure of online technology and social media for the younger generation. I caught Get Thee to a Nursery (an obvious parody of Hamlet’s cruel order to Ophelia, “Get thee to a nunnery”) in one of the tiny studio theatres of The Space venue. A brand-new work by Alex Norcott, it draws on a medley of fifteen Shakespeare plays, and was specifically written for a group of 16 to 17 year-old students, attending Denny High school in Falkirk, a city north of Edinburgh. In a short interview, this director, writer, and drama teacher told me how he had worked with theatre-makers in education and had workshopped the concept and devised the play with a talented group of young performers. His aim: to reinterpret and reimagine Shakespeare’s work for new audiences, some of whom might be unfamiliar with Shakespeare. He was keen to point out that the production was developed as an ex-curricula activity. The cast of six students opted to spend their free-time, learning the intricacies of performing Shakespeare and sometimes contributing to the script, with their lively sense of humour. Their energy and overriding enthusiasm infused what proved to be an entertaining rollercoaster ride, lasting fifty minutes. On entering the studio theatre, an assortment of toys and games are scattered in the playing area, suggesting a nursery – Alex Norcott asked the teenagers to play four-year-olds. On a backcloth, in big letters, a list of characters, freely adapted from Jacques’s “All the World’s a Stage” speech: Scholar, Lover, Soldier, Judge, Pensioner and Old Age, indicate that we are all, whoever we are, entitled to be players. Once a group of young people, dressed in garish clothes and makeup, have made a rowdy entrance, a Nanny figure starts trying to read them a story from The Complete Works of Shakespeare. The reaction is immediate: this hyperactive bunch is unwilling to listen to what for them sounds like a boring old tale. They soon let loose, tearing the pages of the book to shreds, showing they are done with Shakespeare, before falling to sleep in grunts and moans, like any four-year-old. A quick scene change and they are awake, having undergone a metamorphosis. They now speak an articulate mix of colloquial English and Scots, miraculously interwoven with verses from Shakespeare. These ‘trip off the tongue’, for the most part, as neatly as Hamlet would have wished for the troupe of Strolling Players, visiting Elsinore. At regular intervals, fragments of Shakespeare scenes spring unexpectedly to life, like Cleopatra’s line, “I have immortal longings in me,” taking on new and surprising meanings in the mouths of these toddlers. Mark Antony’s address to the Roman people, delivered by a girl, provides another moment of solemnity, “Friends, Romans, Country Men, lend me your ears,” which is quickly brought down by the Nanny’s ever-more weary exhortation, “Your school uniforms are ready, come and try them on.” Alex Norcott concludes by assuring me that the play will be back at the Fringe next year, perhaps reworked with the same actors, or reinforced by new ones. Judging by the expressions of delight and satisfaction on the faces of the young cast, who at that moment are tumbling out of the studio, loaded with their costumes and props, I can’t help but believe him.

Get Thee To A Nursery, at the Edinburgh Fringe 2024, directed by Alex Norcott.