A Christmas Cracker at Cusworth Hall

On a cold morning in December, students from several Doncaster schools arrived at the lovely setting of Cusworth Hall Museum, full of anticipation and looking forward to a fun-filled day of activities based on the work of the ever-popular Roald Dahl. They were not disappointed. This was one of our most successful events to date, thoroughly enjoyable not only for the young readers, but also for the adults present.

The Hall has an excellent Education suite, which they kindly allowed us to take over for the day. One of the features of this is a complete Victorian schoolroom, ideal for our first activity based on Matilda and featuring the fearsome Miss Trunchbull. To begin with, students performed in pairs or threes, choosing either to show Matilda’s first experience in a library, or her horrible car-dealer father. We then had some volunteers to take on the role of Miss Trunchbull herself, while the whole group improvised their responses as Miss Honey’s class. This worked amazingly well, and some of the performances were really hilarious, and scarily convincing!

Our next activity was chosen to take advantage of the Hall’s magnificent Dahl exhibition, and in particular their BFG ‘cave’. Working in groups this time, the students performed scenes showing the first meetings of Sophie and the BFG. As ever, the students were amazing, co-operating really well with one another, and turning out incredible performances after only a very short practice time. The setting really contributed to the atmosphere for both performers and audience.

Our third Roald Dahl story was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, where students performed the scene where Charlie’s grandparents talk about Willie Wonka’s factory. Lunch was supplied by the Hall tearooms, and there was time for everyone to have some fresh air in the lovely grounds before we re-started. In keeping with the season, and some of the Victorian décor, we decided to finish the day with some scenes from A Christmas Carol. These were performed in the main entrance hall, beside the big tree, and were thus watched by other visitors to the hall. We finished with a raffle, where some lucky students won some Roald Dahl books and diary. Everyone was then given their ‘goodie bags’ before it was time to go.

I’d like to thank everyone who took part for making it a really special day, and a great start to Christmas. Special thanks go to the staff at Cusworth Hall, who made us feel so welcome. We will definitely want to do something there again next year!

Lyn Hopson, Secretary, DBA

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