We are proud and delighted to announce that Michael Rosen, writer, poet and all round inspiration, is now a patron of The Globe Players. He joins our current patrons, Hayley Mills and Jeremy Irons.
As with everyone, the challenges of the last few years have been difficult and this wonderful news gives us hope for an exciting and dynamic 2022!
All of us at The Globe Players remember the impact drama and literature had when we were at school. As a theatre company who work in schools day in, day out, we appreciate the extraordinary efforts of the teachers who gave and keep giving so much to allow the magic of theatre to blossom. Here Michael expresses it perfectly….
What did they think they were doing
those English teachers
staying on after school
to put on plays?
I was an ant in a play about ants.
Then I was a servant
in Much Ado About Nothing.
Hours and hours rehearsing
in winter classrooms.
My father did it too,
bringing home the problem
of how to make blood for Julius Caesar’s toga
and snakes for Cleopatra.
They got no money for it
these English teachers.
Sometimes headteachers were pleased
sometimes mildly irritated that the hall was out of action
for their assemblies.
We left school.
They retired.
They’re all gone:
Mr Jones, Mr Brown, my father.
There are one or two photos
blurred pictures of unbelievably young people
with too much make-up round the eyes;
some marked up play scripts,
the character’s name underlined in red,
stage directions – ‘move stage right’.
voice directions – ‘urgent’.
Did they know that we would carry the
memories
for decades?
60 years since ‘Much Ado’.
Did they know that it’d be easier to remember
the lines and the Leichner make-up
than how to do simultaneous equations
and the correct order of the cities down the
Rhine,
though I can be a red corpuscle
and describe my journey from the left ventricle
to my fingers and back
(it involves all four chambers of the heart).
Did they know that some of us
would do more and more and more
of things like saying words out loud
or writing words for others to say out loud
or just working with a few other enthusiastic people
to get something done.
Did they know that?
I once bumped into Mr Brown
on Russell Square Station.
He was in his 70s
I was in my 60s.
I had a lot to tell him.
He had a lot to tell me.
There wasn’t time.
We said, ‘Let’s meet up.’
We didn’t.
He died soon after.
He had an obituary in the Times.
They asked me to add a bit.
I wanted to say that those hours in the winter classrooms
being an ant mattered then mattered again and again
and still matter.
Well, they matter to me.
But did he know that?
Did he know that they would go on mattering?
And if he knew that, where did he and Mr Jones and my father
learn that the kids in their plays
would go on thinking about being ants and servants
for the rest of their lives?
Michael Rosen
I am utterly delighted for you Globies to have the support of such a distinguished and respected gentleman. I hope it lifts your hearts to strive forth and always rise to the many challenges that life throws at us. Theatre in Education onwards and upwards………