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At Ormiston Bushfield Academy in Peterborough, Shakespeare isn’t just the dominion of English and drama lessons.

The school is a lead participant in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s (RSC) First Encounters programme, which finds new ways to bring The Bard to students across the country - particularly those in more disadvantaged areas who are less likely to have access to the theatre.

The programme has been going for 10 years, but this latest incarnation revives a critically acclaimed all-female production of Julius Caesar starring veteran theatre actress Dame Harriet Walter (known to TV audiences for playing questionable mothers in both Succession and Ted Lasso), and takes it out to schools.

Throughout this autumn, hundreds of teenagers have watched the production in school halls across the country, and attended workshops in English, drama, history and even business studies to help them understand and engage with the play.

This particular production (that I saw alongside Year 10 students at Ormiston Bushfield in September) is staged as if it’s being put on in the present day by inmates of a women’s prison.

It’s a fast and relentless 90 minutes with no breaks. Staging is minimalist, props and costumes are understated (red gloves for blood-stained hands, for example) and the production is full of nods to popular culture: there’s a Colin the Caterpillar cake, as well as music by Stormzy and the Pet Shop Boys.

Students don’t necessarily read the play before they come to see the show - some arrive completely new to the story, some will have been introduced to the key things they need to know before seeing it - but the aim is for them all to be engaged by it.

“They were so engrossed in what was going on,” Ormiston Bushfield head Dennis Kirwan says. “It takes kids to a different place.”

Embedding Shakespeare into the school day

Being a lead school for First Encounters, Ormiston Bushfield is where clusters of local schools send their students to experience the production. The academy has hosted Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth and King Lear over the past few years.

After getting started in Peterborough, the production is heading to another lead school in Newquay, before going up to Bradford, then Nottingham and, finally, Blackpool. Over that time, at least 3,500 students will get the chance to see the play in a school near them.

Bringing professional Shakespeare productions into schools is not unusual, but what is different about First Encounters is the breadth of the experience offered.

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After seeing the play, the students will head off to various workshops throughout the week with members of the RSC and even the actors. For example, Dame Harriet herself is working with A-level English students.

Teachers also get professional development on the play in advance to help them explore it with their classes.

But the work will go beyond drama and English, Georgia White, the RSC’s deputy director for creative learning and engagement, explains: in history, for example, students will be looking at who Julius Caesar was and the context in which he was in power, while in food technology students will be making food from Roman times.

Ormiston Bushfield also specially requested a workshop with Year 11 business students, she explains.

“The business studies subject lead was interested in the behind the scenes of actually putting on a tour like this. So we talked about things like the role of a producer, how they shape and bring everything together. The students were tasked with creating their own production companies and considering things like who their audience would be, who would be in their cast, how they might market a production and sell it to an audience.”

The business studies students found it really interesting to gain more of an understanding of the careers available in the creative arts, Kirwan says. “I think some of my students felt, ‘Well, unless you’re an actor or a performer, the creative arts aren’t for you.’ Where actually there are so many roles within the creative world that the business workshop showcased to them.”

Some students have also had the chance to work with the tech team during the shows, and students who are really interested go to the RSC club at the school every week and build their own work (membership in the latter has more than tripled).

Who gets to access the theatre?

The show will reach students at more than 200 schools across its run, and it is particularly focused on areas where teenagers are less likely to have access to the theatre.

In Bradford, 180 Year 10s will try out different roles behind the scenes in the sector.

“The tours should take Shakespeare out, reframe it and what it can be in our current social and political context, but we’re also looking at how we can support young people to build skills for future employment,” White says. “Even if it’s not in this sector, in the workshops they develop skills in team-building, confidence, communication.”

The initiative comes ahead of students getting the opportunity to study new technical pathways from September 2028, as well as new vocational GCSEs from September 2029. One of the options potentially included among those GCSEs is creative media production.

Although the First Encounters programme has been running for 10 years, this year is special, White explains, as acclaimed theatre and film director Phyllida Lloyd (perhaps best known for Mamma Mia! and The Iron Lady) and producer Kate Packenham got in touch with the RSC about bringing back Lloyd’s 2012 production of Julius Caesar and bringing it directly to young people who might not be able to afford to go to London for Shakespeare.

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Lloyd has been keen to revive Julius Caesar, she explains. “With the rise of populism and populist leaders, it feels particularly resonant.”

A lot of the students who have seen the play have been talking about the complexities of leadership and power dynamics and authority, White says.

“I think the collaboration has really opened up the opportunity for us to think about, ‘Who are the most voiceless in society?’ And then we’ve been looking at that in terms of what it means for young people who might not feel like their voices matter.”

This programme will culminate in thousands of students from around the country getting to interpret and perform their own versions of Julius Caesar and other plays at regional “playmaking” festivals

It comes as entries into GCSE and A-level drama have declined steeply since 2010.

The RSC supports technical and vocational learning by welcoming young people in to be trained across backstage disciplines, as part of its skills and development scheme.

But whatever pathway a child is on, for Lloyd, the most important thing is getting the play in front of them.

“The starvation of arts in schools is scandalous and so short-sighted. We wanted to bring the very best of the best into schools as a pledge to say, ‘Maybe you can’t afford to come to us, nobody is offering this to you - we will come to you.’”��
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