The Emperor's New Clothes Guided Reading Script

The Emperor's New Clothes Guided Reading Script
This is one of a collection of Hans Christian Andersen stories and includes Teaching Input, Discussion and Suggestions for Further Activities - i.e. ample content for a lesson. It can equally be used as a literary or PSHE resource.
It could also be used as a small play, for performance, with a few ‘tweaks’ and the addition of the music suggestions below.
Music
1. Fashion - David Bowie
2. You’re so Vain – Carly Simon
Cast of 6:
• Narrator
• Emperor
• Weaver 1 & 2
• Royal Adviser
• Street Child
Duration: Around 10 minutes reading time
Sample Text:
Narrator: (To Street Child) Apart from you, you all went along with this charade – just so as to save face? Well, really!
Royal Adviser: Yes, I know it looks bad
Narrator: It most certainly does
Emperor: But I wonder what you’d have done, especially as everyone else seemed to be going along with it?
Narrator: But couldn’t you see you were being taken for a song and a dance?
Weaver 1: It was quite funny!
Weaver 2: Especially when the emperor here actually turned up to try on his new clothes
Weaver 1: After having given us all that money and gold thread and
Emperor: (Interrupting) Yes, yes. Must you rub it in? Haven’t I been humiliated enough?
Royal Adviser: (Groaning) Oh, if only I had had the strength to admit to what I could see – as in, nothing! No cloth on the loom, no clothes, just air!
Emperor: And what a lot of hot air you were! Coming back telling me how wonderfully the work was progressing. How delighted I was going to be with my new clothes!
Royal Adviser: But I didn’t want to appear either unfit for my job or stupid.
Narrator: And so, you ended up being both!
Street Child: I’ll never understand grown-ups!
Other Hans Christian Anderson stories available are:
• The Ugly Duckling
(with more to come)