School: Inverallochy Primary, Aberdeenshire, 130 pupils; age of children involved 5-12; head Eunice Stephen What was the best arts company to visit your school in the past year? Livewire Science Theatre.
How did you hear about them? They sent their flyer to the school, saying that they had sponsorship and could do free shows.
How long did they spend with you? The performance lasted just under an hour.
What did they do? There were two players and they put on a play called Scaffy, about a dustbin man who was damaging his back and spine by lifting things badly. Scaffy is local dialect for binman, and a lot of the performance was in Doric. They brought their own costumes and props and used lumps of Polystyrene to throw around as if they were heavyweights. Though it was dealing with science, it was presented in drama and comedy form.
Did you do any preparation? Yes, I had been doing the body with my P34 class. We worked on flexibility and muscle strength around the spine.
Any follow-up work? The children wrote about the show and its contents.
What was so good about the act? It was very funny. Parts of it were almost stand-up comedy. And the fact that it was in the local dialect allowed children to identify with them. This is a wee fishing village and the children and staff speak in Doric a lot of the time. One spoke in the local Mastrick accent and the other in standard English. The children were quite carried away by the performance. The P1s got so wound up that they were shouting at the actors “No, no, that’s the wrong way...”, and there was plenty of audience participation.
How relevant was it to the curriculum? It was relevant to drama, science and health.
Contact Livewire Productions, tel: 01569 730002
