London Art and Drama Trip

At half term, Mr Faux and Ms Lee set out with 19 students to get the London Experience. The weather was amazing and we walked for miles in the chilly but mainly dry air. We saw a diverse range of Art Galleries, from Victorian Mosaics in St Paul’s Cathedral and the Tudor Exhibition in the National Portrait Gallery to Modern Art in the Tate Modern and Saatchi Gallery. The first day was by far the scariest. It started with UK’s top scare attraction: The London Experience followed by the play ‘Woman in Black’. Saturday saw us exploring the delights of Camden Market and was contrasted by a sensitive and thought-provoking journey to 1950s England when watching ‘A Taste of Honey’ at The National Theatre. Sunday was the highlight for most with the river taxi down the Thames followed by a walking tour of London, with the hysterical ‘Matilda’ in the afternoon and The London Eye in the evening. The nighttime views over London were magnificent and we were able to see just how far we had travelled. Monday’s workshop with Complicite Theatre was a fantastic opportunity to explore choral techniques and improvisation. We did interesting movements with bamboo with Bea in the morning and later saw the same techniques incorporated in West End theatre. The entertaining Eric was our inspiration and workshop leader in the afternoon getting us to create scenes on the spot, inspired by music. The day was completed with the beautiful performance of ‘War Horse’ where the skill and dynamism of the horse puppeteers made the animals seem alive. The goose was unanimously the favourite though! All in all, it was a brilliant, visually stimulating, beanie-buying, selfie-taking, enthralling, thought-provoking, exhausting few days which shot by far too quickly but with many adventures thrown in.