Summer Reading

Summer holiday reading...

“To read a writer is for me not merely to get an idea of what he says, but to go off with him and travel in his company.”

- Andre Gide

So - for those of you lazing on beaches this summer and travelling distances in planes, trains and automobiles, don't forget to take a good read with you - be that a book, a kindle - ebook, or an audio book.  Remember:

“To read is to fly: it is to soar to a point of vantage which gives a view over wide terrains of history, human variety, ideas, shared experience and the fruits of many inquiries.”

- A C Grayling, Financial Times (in a review of A History of Reading by Alberto Manguel)

The reading list on the left is divided into age-groups and fiction and non-fiction so there should be something not just for all of you, but for your family too.

“Reading a book is like re-writing it for yourself. You bring to a novel, anything you read, all your experience of the world. You bring your history and you read it in your own terms.”

- Angela Carter “To feel most beautifully alive means to be reading something beautiful, ready always to apprehend in the flow of language the sudden flash of poetry.”  - Gaston Bachelard

For pupils entering Year 10 in September, you should read Romeo & Juliet and  An Inspector Calls over the summer.

For those entering Year 11, you should have read Of Mice and Men and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde before you return in the Autumn.

“Give me a man or woman who has read a thousand books and you give me an interesting companion. Give me a man or woman who has read perhaps three and you give me a dangerous enemy indeed.”

- Anne Rice, The Witching Hour Enjoy!

A Big Fat... Midsummer Nightmare?

21st June - Year 8 & 9 trip to Regent's Park Open Air Theatre to see Matthew Dunster’s interpretation of Shakespeare's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'...

   

Under the shadow of the met office, tension built all day. 'To be or not to be?'

 ...on or off? 

But the 'good ole' British weather seemed to be on our side for once...and we set off for Regent's Park Open Air theatre in trepidation and excitement with forty Year 8s and 9s clad mostly in macs and winter woolies for our midsummer sojourn into the world of the Bard. 

'Athensfield' a gypsy encampment - The modern setting for the play, was a dream not yet built and unlikely to be finished, complete with crane and trailers and 'men at work' signs.  It promised to be an exciting interpretation of magical mischief. 

Rather like the set, the production got underway but was another unfinished dream.  More than spritely charms fell from the skies. At first a teasing drizzle fell.  As scenes of mayhem unfolded before us and we were led deeper into the woods and the complex world of love gone awry; of the comedy of the mechanicals (with a Rasta labourer portraying....Thisbe); and the setting up of Bottom by the fairies, we were left with a tangled web and all to resolve. The heavens opened and drowned us out.

The interval was filled with hot chocolate, plastic macs, screams, mad dashes to the loo and a grab for rugs.  Despite the stoical determination not to be beaten by a bit of rain, the Mount girls returned to their seats to watch the final act and see balance restored to Athensfield.  

It was not to be...

The plug was pulled; the theatre drained and a hastily recalled coach brought us back to school half an hour early, rather damp but still in high spirits.

Despite the alternative and abrupt ending to the play, a great evening was had...

Thanks to Mr Davies for organising.

"Rebecca Oldfield delivered a deliciously

 ditsy, despairing drab as Helena."

"I liked the visual gags and puns 

that appeared throughout." 

"Bottom was a wonderful ass..."

http://openairtheatre.org/production/a-midsummer-nights-dream