The English theatre company “Big Wheel” from London has been visiting our school for more than twenty years now. This time it was the founder Roland Allen who guided us through different shows full of surprises and lots of laughter: Breakfast with Big Wheel and Introduction to Shakespeare.
Two participants share their thoughts and experiences of the shows:
“On Wednesday morning, the 3rd May 2022, the 8th, and 9th graders from the level P had the honor to spend two full lessons with a Shakespeare enthusiast. From 10-12 am the students got taught everything they needed to know about Shakespeare’s plays. Throughout the two lessons, they experienced a look at the structure and atmosphere of the Globe Theatre, a Shakespeare horror movie, the characters from A Midsummer Night’s Dream interviewed by the chat show host and an interactive version of Shakespeare’s most famous play, Hamlet. It was entertaining and funny, irrespective of whether you got a role or not. The students laughed and enjoyed the morning.”
“Big wheel is a fun organisation where (usually) an English speaking team comes to a non- English speaking school and hosts a show only spoken in English. This year, only one person, Roland, a man with a very energetic and fun personality, came from England because the rest unfortunately couldn’t make it, but he still made the show extremely enjoyable, fun and put a smile on everyone’s face. In this show even students could volunteer and interact, because of this there were many different challenges.
He called his show “The breakfast show” where he did loads of silly things all revolving around breakfast. As an example, whenever we would move to the next part or challenge of his show he would run around as if he were a celebrity and make us all cheer with loud music.
For the first challenge, there were two teams with four students on each team. We were literally labelled as a family with signs hanging from our lanyards depending on what role we played in the family. We even got to dress up. He asked us questions about breakfast and whoever knew the answer would have to run towards the table (which Roland would be standing next to) and honk the horn on the table. Whoever did this first got to answer, and if they got it wrong they would have to sit back down. If they got it right, however, they would take a sign from the table that showed something that you would eat for breakfast, for example eggs, and whichever team got the most of these signs won.
The next challenge was for four students to put on a shirt and pants with their clothes underneath as fast as they could, but the trick was they had to hold a cup of water and be very careful not to spill it on themselves.
Big Wheel was a very comedic and enjoyable experience.”