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Beowulf school play at Orwell Park School praised by headteacher
Pupils at Orwell Park School in Ipswich performed a production of Beowulf. Pic: Ted Blackbrow. - Credit: Archant
Students in Ipswich have been praised after performing a captivating rendition of Beowulf.
Year six pupils at Orwell Park School used the Victorian ha-ha – a landscape design – in the schools grounds for the performance of the longest epic poem in Old English, the language spoken in Anglo-Saxon England before the Norman Conquest.
More than 3,000 lines long, Beowulf relates the exploits of its eponymous hero, and his successive battles with a monster named Grendel, with Grendel’s revengeful mother, and with a dragon which was guarding a hoard of treasure.
A total of 41 pupils delighted an audience of parents, friends, teachers and fellow students.
The classic tale of the triumph of good over evil culminated in a battle between Beowulf played by Rory Hollis and the dragon played by Will Lewellen, Robert Darell-Brown and James Parsons. In the fading light of a summer afternoon, the battle was one of the play’s highlights
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The school’s headmaster Adrian Brown and English and drama teacher Tom Lawley praised the cast for a “difficult performance during the exam term”.
They also thanked staff who helped with the make-up and costumes.
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The cast were helped by the fact that the school, on the banks of the River Orwell, was a favourite place for the Vikings to service their longships more than a thousand years ago.
