Demonic Day Out

This report on Thursday's A level English trip is by James Gifford:

A Demonic Day out

Though some would imagine a trip to see Christopher Marlowe’s ‘Doctor Faustus’ somewhat like being condemned, the Year 13 English students were spirited away/ by the modern interpretation of this Marlowvian play...Oh look, even the Rhyming verse has got to us.

Leaving at half past eleven, we journeyed through London to Stratford where the play was held at the ‘Stratford Circle’ theatre. After handing in our tickets and presumably selling our souls to get in, we were taken aback by the unusual ‘gangster-style’ performance of the Demons. The sinisterly-slick-haired Demon, Mephistopheles echoed scenes from ‘The Godfather’. The vulnerably geeky yet dangerously power-hungry Faust was again another character who you wouldn’t want to bump into at night, let alone in the theatre. The building Frustration and Torment of Faustus’s damnation was almost palpable, and at moments the cast had us utterly convinced that we were trapped in their inescapable Hell.

However we did escape and on the journey back there was much discussion over such a provoking performance. Arriving back just in time for supper, one person commented: “It was certainly a very different from what we expected.”

By James Gifford