Modernizing the Bard · Sun May 13, 19:19 by Eleri Straker
I’ve been teaching my difficult Yr 9 group Much Ado for their SATS. It’s a lovely play and even the less able seem to be able to access the story.
But when it comes to understanding the language, it’s another matter.
They really seem to have a problem when it comes to reading Shakespeare’s verse.
These days I ignore the brain dead comments about it not being written in English as I’ve heard them too often and logic doesn’t work on thirteen year olds. However, I decided that I would show them that the language hasn’t changed that much by showing them the most recent BBC version of Much Ado.
It’s an interesting version with a stellar cast and set in a regional news studio. It’s very well acted and the inclusion of Billy Piper (of Dr Who fame) is an added bonus for the hormonal boys.
They found it hysterically funny. It’s a long time since I heard this class laughing out loud at the Bard’s jokes. And despite the modern setting, they were the Bard’s jokes.
I also noticed that they, particularly the girls, were moved to silence by the scene when
Beatrice asks Benedick (Benedict in this version) to kill Claudio (Claude here). Having only recently read the text and also watched Kenneth Branagh’s superb version of the play, they understood the power of the scene.
I’ve heard and read too many criticisms of late of modernizing or even (Heaven forbid!) ‘dumbing down’ of Shakespeare, but to any experienced teacher of the Bard, such versions are invaluable. They don’t take the place of the real thing, but they are a means for less able students to access a part of their culture that otherwise they might dismiss as either irrelevant (‘come on miss he’s been dead for four hundred years!’) or incomprehensible.
Shakespeare wrote for the masses, so surely making the Bard accessible to only the able elite is wrong?
