It’s become a tradition at Drama Studio London to tour festive shows to local schools and organisations in the last few weeks of the term before our Christmas holiday break. The experience is also a firm favorite with our students, some of which name it as one of the highlights of their time with us. And, for many of our audiences, this provides a first taste of live performance as well as a very welcome treat. 2024 was no exception.
The festive tour is a wonderful opportunity for our students to experience performing in a variety of spaces and in front of a variety of audiences. In the morning they can find themselves performing in front of 30 shy 6 year olds and then in the afternoon (in another school) performing in front of 240 boisterous 10 year olds! They take responsibility for all the props, set and costumes and are often expected to perform up to 3 times in one day in different venues which helps build up their vocal and physical stamina. Often this module is one of the most rewarding for students because it can positively impact young people’s lives via their experience of live theatre.
Kevin Tomlinson – Personal Tutor and Director at DSL
Over two weeks in November and December, DSL produced seven individual shows and toured to fifteen host organisations, reaching thousands of audience members. Just one cast alone (Bees Knees) performed to over 1000 children at local primary schools. We estimate that figure is trebled when including all seven shows.
This years’ productions included:
- Bees Knees
- The Elves and the Shoemaker
- The Christmas Memory
- Cinderella
- Treasure Island
- Beauty and the Beast
- Dick Whittington
- The Selfish Giant
With the ever-rising price of theatre trips and educational funding cuts, many schools struggle to provide experiences such this for their pupils. This makes our touring shows even more valuable to our surrounding community. The carefully chosen material and the sheer joy the students exude definitely combine to create a memorable and heart-warming introduction to the performing arts.
Our hosts included primary schools and care settings in the surrounding areas of our West London base. It’s a logistical challenge for our resident team and a tiring one for our students, but we all agree that the reward of enchanting so many audience members makes it more than worthwhile. Here’s what staff and pupils at one of our host schools, Coston Primary School, had to say about our visit with Bees Knees:
On Wednesday 27th November, we were treated to a delightful pantomime performance from highly skilled students with their production of ‘Bees Knees’. The costumes and ‘quick change’ routines added an extra dimension and the older children were quick to recognise the changes of character throughout the pantomime. All the children thoroughly enjoyed the performances and sang and clapped along readily to the catchy songs throughout. The staff too were seen joining in with the actions and giggling at the jokes.
Parents Newsletter 29th November
I thought it was very good and a lot better than other theatre plays. My favourite part was when the wasps came along!
Tymon – Year 6
It was very funny! My favourite part was when the queen Bee came along because it all changed from when they had a King.
Hayyan – Year 2
I liked the way they helped each other through the whole thing because it was really sweet. The singing was also beautiful.
Natalya – Year 3
If you are connected to a school or care setting or a community organisation within a commute of Ealing and you’d like to talk to us about setting up a visit for our next tour in November 2025, please get in touch. We’d love to hear from you and reach even more people with this cheering, fun and educational project for our 2025 tour.