Former Doctor Who companion Pearl Mackie will be taking part in a new online initiative to help school age children get their heads around Shakespeare and other key texts. She’ll be joining forces with comedian Joe Lycett, as well as other well known faces, for an online reading of Macbeth organised by ReadThrough.
The project aims to support students with their studies through the Covid-19 pandemic at a time when they have reduced access to help from their teachers and, crucially for studying English and Drama, they can’t go to see plays on the curriculum at the theatre.
ReadThrough explain their mission as follows:
“We believe that for too long many students have not been able to participate in this way of learning, that live performance has been reserved for the privileged few and those geographically positioned close to theatre. This is a chance to level the playing field and to deliver ReadThrough’s services to every child studying English or Drama in every school across the UK.”
Mackie’s involvement was confirmed by Lycett on BBC One’s The One Show on 5th February. The reading of Macbeth, followed by a discussion of the text, takes place on the afternoon of 11th February. It’s open only to schools which are studying the play and teachers can request tickets by email to seatsplease@wearereadthrough.com.
Other high profile backers of ReadThrough include Dame Emma Thompson, Stephen Fry, Simon Callow, Amma Asante, and Shazad Latif.
More information about ReadThrough can be found at We Are Readthrough, and UK viewers can catch Lycett’s appearance on The One Show, in which he introduces the project, on BBC iPlayer. There’s also a crowd funder to raise money to support ReadThrough on Kick Starter.
