Poetry Aloud final

Well done to Opeline Kellett and William Maire, who both reached the national final of the Poetry Aloud competition at the National Library of Ireland on Friday (thus SCC had 10% of the national finalists!), and to Molly Buckingham, who did very well in the semi-final. We hope to build on this success by continuing to push learning and reciting poetry in junior forms in particular.

Poetry Aloud finals

Good luck to Opeline Kellett (III), William Maire (II) and Molly Buckingham (I) who this morning take part in the semi-finals and (this afternoon, we hope) the final of the Poetry Ireland / National Library Poetry Aloud competition - details here.

Teaching English magazine

The latest edition of 'Teaching English' magazine from the English Support Service is out now, and can be seen below via Issuu (click on the magazine for larger view and scroll through the pages).

It features winners from their recent poetry competition; a guide to the 2010 Leaving Cert comparative texts (including a section on one of our choices, The Story of Lucy Gault (by Old Columban William Trevor); ideas for teaching first years; fiction choices for junior pupils (such as Anthony Horowitz's Raven's Gate, and Sharon Creech's Replay); 14 ideas for working on a class novel; and an interview with teacher John Clarke from Clonkeen College in Dublin about his album-project with TY pupils. See below for the full magazine. For previous posts on earlier editions, click on the TE Mag label at the bottom of this post.

Get your own - Open publication

Travelling by Night

(This is the 500th post since this blog started in June 2006).

Ms Smith writes : During the winter timetable the last lesson of the day takes place in darkness. This is new to the Primaries, and it prompted them to write about their most memorable experiences of darkness. They wrote under the title 'Travelling by Night'. Here are three of their pieces:-

Rishi Manuel:-
Clambering up the metal stairs that glinted in the moonlit sky, we got into the colossal flying machine. It slipped off quietly into the dark night sky. As we flew I nodded to the minuscule white stars that shone brightly in the black sky. I glanced down below through the oval window. I gazed at the white horses’ heads; a message that indicated the arrival of yet another unknown land. I leaned back onto the comfy chair, listening to the soft hum of the engines, which soon called the darkness to take over me.

Mark Russell:-
I am in a car, in the middle of the night. The light is dim as if it’s twilight. I cannot see my legs or my arms. On my left, golden orange streams go by at intervals, on my right is the black silhouette of hedgerows against a silver, moonlit, night sky. In front, crimson lights up every part of my vision. At my back, a reassuring seat.

Roman Sharykin:-
The best place to watch shooting stars in Russia is a place not far from Moscow; on the roof of a cinema. My story starts when my friends and I were climbing up the metal stairs to this great place; the roof of the famous cinema. The long shadows of trees were falling below the great night sky. Although we knew we weren’t allowed to be up there, it was still one of the most important nights of the century for us.

We were pleased to be up there at last, waiting for the meteor shower to begin. It was time. It should have been happening. We turned our heads to the sky. No movement, no stars, no moon, just dark sky. We were waiting for one, two, three, four, five minutes. Nobody believed it would happen anymore. Some of my friends were ready to go home. But then something made the sky shine. We all put our heads up and saw how beautiful it was; lights and stars falling like shattered glass.

Review of 'The Great Hunger'

Tom MacIntyre's version of Patrick Kavanagh's The Great Hunger is now 25 years old; last night Balally Players opened their revival at the Mill Theatre, Dundrum. In his programme notes, director Geoffrey O'Keeffe emphasises the importance of the play as 'a touchstone in Irish theatre-making' which 'rejected the restrictive confines of an intellectual, naturalistic idiom and created a theatrical language that was inventive, visceral and engaging'. It's a brave choice, since the text could now seem a rather dated sub-Beckettian piece of theatre. However, O'Keeffe's production, driven by strong performances, shows that it's worth having another look.

The freshening-up starts with Gerard Bourke's set, which features big sloping slashes of corrugated iron topped by an ironic deeply-blue Mediterranean sky and a disconnected gate which goes from nowhere to nowhere. It also helps that the Mill is a small space, with the audience close to rather than physically distanced from the performers. It's clear that Beckett is the greatest dramatic influence on MacIntyre, and if the play is to work, it needs to echo not just his techniques, but his tenderness with his characters. There's plenty here that seems to come from Godot, Happy Days or Endgame - the bleak landscape, the snatches of language, the repetitive rituals, the comic set-pieces, the silences, the gesturalism - but thankfully the actors also manage to imbue a sense of warmth and humanity to their characters.

We admit that here at SCC English we're hardly disinterested, but the greatest credit goes to Evan Jameson in the central role of Patrick Maguire. A big presence on stage, Jameson uses his size and expressive face to powerful effect, dominating the production (he is on for almost all of the 100 minutes). He plays Maguire as a big gawky child, with touches of Max Wall and John Cleese, bewildered by life, innocent and sometimes infantile (he ends the production in a foetal huddle). At one stage (as on the poster), he spends several minutes upside down on the gate, an arresting image of the freshness he brings to the part. It's a hugely demanding and physical role, and he's the main reason why this production is emotionally engaging.

The rest of the cast support effectively, especially Maguire's male friends Francis Cahill as Malone, John Canning and Packy and Oran O'Rua as Joe, and the women Jacqueline Dooley (Mary Anne), Judy McKeever (Agnes), Niamh Daly and Siomha ni Aonghusa. Significantly, the Schoolgirl as played by Niamh Holland often seems the most mature individual in the story. In this production, the women's sexuality is rapacious and hungry, whereas the men are baffled innocents (a barnyard animal sex scene descends into schoolboy giggling).

[added June 2009 - click here for a podcast review with Evan Jameson about the production]

New Yorker offer

One of the world's repositories of great writing, the New Yorker magazine, has an offer at the moment of four free digital issues of the magazine, which can be scrolled through on screen similarly to our use of Issuu, via their new Digital Reader. Well worth registering just for the pleasure and elegance of its design, let alone the writing, which in the current December 1st issue features articles on V.S. Naipaul and Stephen Sondheim as well as a personal essay by Henry Louis Gates Jr. Register here.

This Week

Exams are on for everyone, so a quiet time for the blog. We start a weekend Exodus on Saturday, and school resumes on Wednesday, following which we have an extremely busy period leading up to Christmas. We'll then be posting plenty of work by pupils - TY Extended Essays and book reports especially.

Before long it'll be time for all those newspaper 'Books of the Year'. We'll be pleased to highlight our own visitors' Books of the Year, too: please email any contributions to scc'dot'english'at'yahoo'dot'ie, and we'll gather them up and post before the end of term (or just Comment at the end of this post).

The Great Hunger

One of the poems on the V form poetry course (examined in 2010) is Patrick Kavanagh's 'The Great Hunger'.

Good luck to a member of our Department, Evan Jameson (left, upside down...), who tomorrow night opens in the lead role of Patrick Maguire in the Balally Players' production of Tom MacIntyre's 1983 dramatisation at the Mill Theatre, Dundrum. In the words of their website:-

The story is centred on the life of Inniskeen farmer Patrick Maguire. He is a lonely man, living a physically and emotionally isolated life. While the play draws a very clear picture of the frustrations associated with such an existence, it has hilarious as well as brutal and tragic moments. Maguire has occasional and ultimately futile skirmishes with Agnes and the 'local girls'. This, and his failure to communicate with the other women in his life, his mother and sister, is very well portrayed. In contrast to this, he finds with 'the lads' a camaraderie and a sense of fun that lifts his spirits. This is a piece of physical theatre where the lines of the poem are used sparingly and appropriately.

The play is directed by Geoffrey O’Keeffe, All-Ireland Winning Director and Chairman of Balally Players this year. This adaptation of Patrick Kavangh's poem of the same name became a touchstone for fresh and exciting approaches to Irish theatre when it was first produced in The Peacock Theatre in 1983.

My Fair Lady photos

Here's our photo album of the recent highly successful production of My Fair Lady. The majority of the photographs were taken at the Friday night performance by our Head of Photography, Mr Peter Watts, and his pupil Amelia Shirley. Additional rehearsal photos have been added. Click below on the arrow for slideshow, or if you can't access it, try here. Click on the photo to bring up the album, and then on 'Slideshow' for a larger view. See yesterday's post for a collage, and an Animoto video using some of these pictures. Cast can download photos from here by clicking on 'Download'.

My Fair Lady review

Here is V former Kate Haslett's review of last weekend's Senior Play, My Fair Lady:-

"On Friday 14th November at 7pm,the school gathered in the Big Schoolroom to watch the eagerly anticipated adaptation of the Nobel Prize winner George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, My Fair Lady…

The play opens on a rainy night in Edwardian London as the opera patrons are waiting under the arches of Covent Garden for cabs. A cheerful mood engulfs us, until a chance meeting between the eponymous 'fair lady' (Poppy Vernon) and the aristocratic Freddie (Shane Lavin) leads to Colonel Hugh Pickering’s (Michael McBurney) challenge. Linguistic expert Professor Henry Higgins (Oli Smith) has six months to turn this 'creature' into a sophisticated lady.

The staging was excellently done, and succeeded in adding a certain atmosphere to the play. There was one backdrop for the entire play, which managed to fit universally into every scene. The frequent scene changes, executed by Josh Buckingham and Ian Fraser, were witty and kept a lightness to the play.

The acting in this play can not be faulted either. Each actor carried out his or her role exceptionally with pitch-perfect vocals. However, three stars seemed to stand out in my mind, and to everyone I spoke to as well. Poppy Vernon's unique portrayal Eliza Doolittle, Oli Smith's excellent performance as Professor Henry Higgins and Michael McBurney's take on Colonel Hugh Pickering were the talk of the evening. There were also many other actors who stood out, such as Fred Mann's illustration of Alfie Doolittle, Shane Lavin as the love-struck Freddie, Anna Traill as the empathetic Mrs. Higgins and Gina Mirow as Mrs Pearse.

The play was exceptionally directed by Jeremy Stone and Julian Girdham, who managed to combine strict direction with the talent of each of the actors, and the music was directed by Geraldine Malone-Brady

This was a very demanding portrayal of the adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion. However it was enjoyed by all, and I would just like to say congratulations to everyone who took part. "

My Fair Lady Animoto

Above, a collage of some of the photographs we're assembling from last weekend's production of My Fair Lady - the full album will be here shortly. Click on the image for a closer view. And below, an Animoto video using some of the photos. Click on the arrow on the poster to start the video; the music is Zemer Attic/Tanz Tanz Yiddlelac by 3 Leg Torso (honestly).

Growing Pain, by Vernon Scannell

A year ago, almost to the day, Vernon Scannell died. His 'Growing Pain' is our 39th Poem of the Week. See here for our previous post about Scannell and his fine poetic career. The poem itself can be read here.

My Fair Lady reaction

Our first response to the weekend production of My Fair Lady comes from our former Head of English, John Fanagan, who retired in the summer, and who writes :-

It was good to be back in the Big Schoolroom on Friday evening last for the first night of My Fair Lady, this year's senior play/musical, produced by Jeremy Stone, Julian Girdham and Geraldine Malone-Brady. It is a very demanding piece, with some very large individual roles, ensemble singing and frequent scene changes (the latter masterfully executed by Josh Buckingham and Ian Fraser who added their own quirky touches).

The two main roles (pictured) were perfectly cast. Poppy Vernon as Eliza sang and acted with exceptional confidence. Her scene at Ascot where she mingles with English high society was particularly effective. Oli Smith made the misogynist Professor Higgins unusually likeable. Michael McBurney as Pickering was very assured as Higgins's bemused sidekick.

The production looked terrific: the huge number of costumes (well done Helen Roden and Karen Hennessey) and the clever set. Both Oli and Fred Mann (as Alfie Doolittle)made good use of my grandfather's top hat. It was great to see so many pupils from Sixth Form down to Primary taking part, especially in the choruses; Geraldine Malone-Brady had worked her usual magic.

The smaller roles were also strong. I particularly enjoyed Shane Lavin's lovestruck Freddy, Gina Mirow as Mrs Pearce and Anna Traill as Mrs Higgins.

It was hugely enjoyed by pupils and adults alike in the audience. I know just how much work goes in to bringing it all together. Congratulations to everyone.

Many thanks to John for his kind comments. Later this week we'll have a full pupil review

Striped Pyjamas & Damaged

The Transition Year Extended Essays are due in on Thursday, and after they've been marked we'll post some of the best ones here. Meanwhile, here are more recommendations from the pupils' reading for their projects.

Stephanie Brann has read John Boyne's The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (previously also recommended by Robbie Hollis and Kate Boyd Crotty) :- "This book is set during the Second World War. A young boy whose father is a high soldier in the Germany Army moves to a house in the country beside a Jewish concentration camp. Bruno is very adventurous and decides to investigate the area around his house, even though he is specifically told not to.

I like this book because it is very realistic and detailed. The ending is very sudden and makes you think how awful life must have been - and not so many years ago. This book can be read by people of all ages as it contains very simple language, but is still full of interesting moments."

Rebecca Moran has read Damaged, by Cathy Glasss :- "This book follows the story of a young girl's tragic life, and the events that take place in her foster home. As she grows to love her new family she reveals the horrors of her past. I really enjoyed it because the storyline, although haunting, is extremely gripping. What makes this book so heart-breaking is that it is a true story. I would recommended it to anybody who is interested in the psychology of a disturbed child."

My Fair Lady last night

Tonight is the final performance of our musical, My Fair Lady. Next week we'll have a review by a V form pupil, and lots of photographs. The programme can be seen here.

(poster created thanks to Wordle).

Sniper One, by Dan Mills

II former Hamish Law has been reading Dan Mills's book Sniper One, and recommends it strongly:-

This is a truly mesmerising read. You’ll pick it up and you will need a strong will to put it back down. I found it an exhilarating, emotional, truthful and hilarious read. It is the story of Sniper One platoon and their horrible, repulsive tales of Afghanistan.

What makes this so compelling is that it is true autobiography encompassing astonishing tales of warfare. You might have thought things were cooling down over there but you will realize things are still worse than hell. The book uncovers the worst aspects of warfare in Afghanistan.

Edublogs Awards 2008

We are delighted to nominate our esteemed Science Department's Frog Blog for the 2008 Edublogs Award in the 'Best New Blog' category. This is an excellent mixture of general science news across many disciplines (Biology, Geology, Agricultural Science, Physics and more), articles on significant moments in the history of science, pupils' essays and some entertaining links. And, of course, a slightly strange obsession with frogs. Good luck, chaps.

My Fair Lady performances

Our Senior Play production of Lerner and Loewe's My Fair Lady previews tonight to a smallish audience, with the main performances on Friday (7pm) and Saturday (8pm) in the Big Schoolroom. Next week we'll have a pupil review here.

The programme, with cast list, can be seen here.