Drama

Congratulations to Year 7 and Top Form on their powerful and dramatic performance of Private Peaceful.

Set during World War I, the play charts eight hours in the life of Tommo, a young soldier at the Front, as he looks back over the formative events of his life: his father’s early death, his relationship with his loving mother and brothers, Big Joe and Charlie, and their beloved school-friend Molly.

The cast and crew worked incredibly hard to bring this naturalistic play to life, the first time in over a decade that Year 7 and Top Form have performed together at Beechwood. The cast and crew demonstrated real empathy in their mature and confident story-telling. Well done to everyone involved for pulling together to create such a complex and thought-provoking production.

We look forward to sharing the photo books with you shortly, but in the meantime, please enjoy the photos on the next pages.

As always, this production has been a true Beechwood team effort. Special thanks go to: • Joel Wood for allowing us to use some of your precious army memorabilia and your truly wonderful watch! • The Calcroft family for providing the 3D printing materials for the fantastic rifles. • To Carly Jacques for your incredible creativity and phenomenal attention to detail in creating yet another full set of production costumes. What an honour for our soldiers to be wearing original army buttons from World War 1. • Gail Gamble for all your help in managing our ticketing reservation system. • Michael Carver for the evocative production photographs and for ably setting up and assisting with our stage lighting system. • To all the parents who have supported the after school and weekend rehearsals. We hope that all the extra driving was worth it! • Thank you also to the Senior Leadership Team for their support throughout the rehearsal process. • Thanks to the Purchase Ledger team for all those unusual orders. • Thanks to Emily Henry our Catering Manager for the additional meals and • To the Maintenance Team for laying our lovely stage flooring. • To all the staff who have given up their free time to supervise the cast at the weekend and during the performances themselves. • To all the children, who have been fantastic throughout the entire rehearsal process and the creative team are incredibly proud of them.

Summer Term Drama Notices

I am running a competition to find the best artwork for The Button Box - to use as posters and for the programme. Everyone in Years 5 and 6 is welcome to enter. All information is also on the Drama Google Classrooms.

Rules

1. Please make your design bright & colourful. 2. You should use A4 paper (portrait please), with the following text - The Button Box by John Gleadall (Starshine Music Ltd.) 3. The deadline is Friday 29 April.

Buttons featured in the musical are:

• Uncle Jack’s Button (sailor) • Aboriginal Button (Before the Dreamtime) • Chinese Scene (The Frog King) • Jamaican scene (Paradise Island) • World War 1 Scene (Uncle Tom’s Button) • African scene (Impuku Nekati) • Music Hall scene (The Crow’s Button) • Indian Scene (The Bombay Button) • The chocolate scene (The Chocolate Button) • Irish Leprechaun button

I’m looking forward to you bringing your pictures into school after the Easter holidays. Have fun! Mrs Hegarty