Miss Merry and her staff team led a group of Year 10 and 11 students who were both creative contributors as well as accomplished actors in this performance.

Students’ ideas helped to shape the design of the show while two Year 10 pupils composed an amazing original score to complement the action ‘on stage’; the play was performed ‘in the round’ as well as utilising the main stage in our Theatre.

This meant the audience were immersed in the experience as they sat around the camp fire at the centre of the play’s action, while the stage above was used to create stunning visual effects including ‘the Beast’. Using these two spaces helped to illustrate how the young characters were divided into two factions by their experiences on the island where the play is set.

Despite the whole production being cast, rehearsed and performed within the tiny time-scale of two months, the level of performance displayed by the whole cast was breath-taking. There was no place to hide in this production: most of the actors were on stage for almost all of the show’s duration and their commitment, without exception, to inhabit and portray the experiences of the young children they represented, left the audience gripped, moved and very proud.