Hugh Paterson, head of drama at George Watson’s College in Edinburgh, had no complaints about this year’s Higher paper. The set text paper offered a variety of questions, allowing candidates to write about a text from the actor’s and the director’s point of view. It included characterisation, various performance concepts and use of language in straightforward questions, he thought.
The commentary question, often challenging and time-consuming, was straightforward, as long as pupils knew their texts, including Antigone, Twelfth Night (pic-tured), Ghosts, Mother Courage, and The House of Bernard Alba.
The third part, on contemporary Scottish theatre, can be problematic because different schools study different texts, but there was a wide variety of questions and students should not have found any difficulty in finding two essays to write about.
The Advanced Higher paper requires students to study two out of a choice of 11 practitioners. Mr Paterson’s pupils chose Stanislavsky. He was happy with the simple language used.
