I run a range of classes from nursery to infants and juniors and right through secondary school, often giving one-to-one tuition to students studying GCSE and A-level drama.

The emphasis of my classes is not so much on performance but more on imaginary play, working through improvisation, and devising or creating stories and characters.

I draw on the children’s own imagination and spontaneity. With younger children we explore a variety of ideas and stories that change from week to week, and with older children we might devise a piece week by week over a term or two, spending sometime exploring the background of a story and its characters.

Infant classes involve imaginary play through movement, sound and story-telling, improvising and exploring a variety of stories and ideas. From Creation to dinosaurs and cavemen, aliens and pirates, puppets, the five senses, Aesop’s Fables, Cinderella and much, much more. I use the Mister Men characters as a starting point for very young children to develop an understanding of characters.

For example an imaginary adventure outdoors: The children caught in the wind, stuck in the mud, climbing hills, rolling down, building a grass house and at the seaside running away from the waves, rock pools, crabs and castles and ice creams!

With older children, classes draw on aspects of the school curriculum. An example would be a spy thriller set in World War II, focusing on the French resistance. We debate the role and courage of the resistance and every aspect of war, including rationing, evacuation, occupation, anti-Semitism, and the quest for power. We study the training of a spy, including the need to speak different languages and be resourceful.

Another example is a murder mystery in a stately home, which allows students to explore the role of the servants, learning about social class and the hierarchy below stairs, with many Downton Abbey-style scenes in the kitchen. They learn to pass from being aristocrats to servants.

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