Copyright Pete Le May
Half term may be nearly over but the summer holidays aren’t far away and I bet you’re looking for something to entertain the tween or teen in your life. Well, I have just the thing for you. It helps if your kids are into DnD and/or Shakespeare but luckily I have a Shakespeare obsessive who doesn’t mind a bit of DnD and a DnD obsessive who doesn’t mind a bit of Shakespeare. So a demonstration of Shakespearean sword fighting seemed perfect for us.
What wasn’t perfect was the signal failure at Clapton that meant all the trains were cancelled. We wearily flagged down a 275 and headed to Woodford, via the North Circular – a diversion that adds an extra few minutes to an already lengthy trip.
But the good news is that once we got to Woodford, a Central line train was just about to leave and so we jumped on and were at St Pauls within half an hour.
Plus, we were sitting opposite two small doggos, which pleased Eva. And you get to play the Central line Museum of Illusions game. Where’s your head at, Roo?
None of this left much time for lunch which was, of course, at Eva’s preferred fries dispensary. Happily, there’s a branch just next to St Paul’s so we managed to grab some food and walk over the wobbly bridge in time for the workshop to start at 2. In fact, we had a few spare minutes to wash the ketchup off our hands and relax in the the tent downstairs.
As it happened, the workshop wasn’t in the main bit of the Globe at all but around the corner, at the entrance marked as “Guided Tours Entrance”. We had a few minutes to kill before the workshop started so posed a bit for this photo opportunity:
As per the instructions, I didn’t take any photos during the workshop itself but here’s a press image so you can get the idea:
Copyright John Wildgoose
Our hosts were two actors called Marie and Rob. I believe Marie is also a fight co-ordinator but they both knew a lot about the artform and how swords were handled in Shakespeare’s day. Apparently swords were as common a sight in Shakespeare’s London as cars are today and, like cars, there were varying degrees of quality and prestige. They talked us through four different types of weaponry and at each stage, demoed the weapons with a fight. Occasionally they reminded us to not try this at home and I have tried to re-enforce that with Roo but he seems keen to try out the new knowledge he’s absorbed. Maybe he’ll be able to work it into GCSE Drama somehow. I should also say that the weapons were blunted as they’re stage weapons and they would also have been blunted in Shakespeare’s time.
The first weapon was the Rapier, which was demoed alongside the dagger. As well as showing off their duelling skills, the hosts also linked the different weapons to characters in different Shakespeare plays – from Tybalt vs Mercutio to Prince Hal vs Hotspur. There’s a lot of information but interspersed with the practical demonstrations, which included some very dramatic death scenes. I forget all the types of swords we were shown but Reuben, who was obviously listening well, tells me there were longswords, shortswords and staffs. Plus one which had a Scottish name that none of us can remember but it was used along with a shield in the Scottish play. I should probably pause at this point to apologise to Marie and Rob for the number of times that Reuben said the name of the Scottish play. I think he underestimated just how superstitious actors are.
There was a bit of time for questions and the hosts answered everything we threw at them, such as whether there were any female swords(wo)men, whether anyone in Shakespeare’s company ever died on stage from a swordfight and whether the hosts themselves had ever sustained any injuries from swordfighting. If you want to know the answers to these questions, you should probably just book tickets to go. No spoilers here.
At the end, we got the chance to handle two of the swords ourselves. They were held at the other end by our hosts but I promised the kids I’d magic-eraser the hands out so it looked like they were freely wielding the weaponry. In the interests of transparency, I’ve included both versions here – health & safety version followed by clumsily edited version. No one lost any limbs, that’s all you need to know.
So, here’s Reuben with the Rapier:
And Eva with the same, stabbing Rob to death:
And both kids with (I think) the longsword:
It was a really fun afternoon out and really interesting to learn a bit about the art of stage fighting. For two Drama students it was a handy lesson and feeds into their special interests as well. It’s probably more for older kids than littlies as the swords are quite heavy and, even in this controlled environment, could be dangerous in toddler hands. Besides, there’s a lot of listening to be done and a basic understanding of Shakespeare comes in useful. But for my two, it was pretty much spot on and it meant we got to see a bit of the Globe we’d never visited before and there were some cool things to see along the way. There’s even a fake but lifesize tree down there:
So definitely one for the older and geekier kids in your life. Don’t forget the (near-obligatory) trip to Spice Mountain in Borough Market afterwards, to stock up on weird flavourings and fruit powders. I didn’t get a photo of Eva’s spoils of war but trust me, our spice drawer is now full restocked.
The sword fighting demonstrations run until 27th October. For tickets and more info, click here
Disclaimer: I received free tickets in exchange for a review. All opinions remain honest and my own.
