English teachers discover how to teach Richard III as a performance text in a specially commissioned workshop with the Royal Shakespeare Company Learning department. Jacqui O'Hanlon, RSC Head of Professional Development, uses practical exercises to help teachers understand the plays through doing. The workshop kicks off with a warm-up exercise designed to encourage an emotional connection with the sinister world of Richard III. The teachers produce an image from a line of text designed to physically root their understanding of the play's themes of mistrust and abuse of power. RSC practitioner Rachel Gartside takes the teachers through a collective role play giving teachers an anchor into one of the key scenes as they are encouraged to find their own words to connect to the dilemmas their character faces. The teachers then take turns to read punctuation mark to punctuation mark in order to deal in an egalitarian way with the nervousness of reading in public.

Video Series: KS3 English
Release Date 2006