A School for entertainment

On Wednesday 18th June, the night before my final A level exam, I chose not to revise, but to watch The School of Night at Grassington Festival; needless to say, my hopes for the performance were high. Being particularly interested in literature, the event caught my eye in the festival brochure and I was enticed by mentions of Shakespeare and Dr Seuss (unfortunately, the latter was absent on this occasion, but given the overall quality of the performance, this was a matter of utter insignificance in the end). So I found myself sat in Grassington town hall, revision guide balanced precariously on my lap as a nod towards the work I probably should have been doing that evening, with almost no idea of what I was about to experience.

As it happens, my attempt at revision was not in vain. Before the performance had even started, the audience were involved, as the School collected books from us to use later, including my A2 Physics revision guide. I must admit I was not convinced it would be of much use, but as the performance began by their “channelling” the authors of the various books they had collected I soon forgot about this uncertainty. They began with a novel, reading from the book for a few lines before continuing in the same style, improvising as they continued to imitate similes with a humorous twist. The School then did the same with a book on economics, a leaflet of 100 things to do in Grassington (comment that this was a “thin volume” was met by one of many laughs from the audience), a homework diary and even my revision guide. All were amusingly accurate, inspiring laughter the moment they began.

Although here, “School” is taken to mean the “underground sect” the group name themselves after, the performance also lived up to the educational definition of the word. They began at the beginning, with Chaucer, telling a story told by a member the audience in the style of the Canterbury Tales. Again, this was improvised - in tetrameter, as they informed us - and also in what sounded convincingly like Middle English. They introduced us to poets such as Nostradamus, whose style they used a “punishment”, accompanied with a warning not to “try this at home”, for when a member of the school did not adhere to the correct meter in their improvising. And every time they introduced a new writer or style, they explained the technicalities to the audience, teaching us about meter and rhyme. The “long lost Shakespeare play,” in the last part of the performance was a late romance called El Nino, starring King Threshfield and the fairies. There were frequent pauses where they would explain a technique they were using; not only were we shown something that looked very much like Shakespeare, they explained why it seemed so.

Yet in spite of the informative side, it maintained its wit and originality. The nature of improvisation means that no performance is without mistakes, but these “slip-ups” were no less a part of the show than when verse flowed as smoothly as if it had been previously planned. They were even highlighted, like the aforementioned “punishments”. It was an evening spontaneously crafted from the perfect and the imperfect so that neither took precedence over the other. And despite the clear intelligence required to put on such a performance, it was by no means high-brow. It was a night for the greatest Shakespeare fanatic, but also for the less poetry-enthused among us – enjoyed by all, perhaps even counteracting a resentment for Shakespeare that many acquire at school, having no choice but to read his plays. For me, it opened my mind to see literature in a new way. I was inspired by the skill, educated by the knowledge, and amused by the wit. But given the choice, would I sacrifice my revision again? Without a doubt.