Everyone has a part to play

8:25am Wednesday 6th August 2008

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by Andrew Kaufman

Actor Mark McGann may seem like an unlikely candidate to explain Socrates’ most complex philosophies to a group of school children.

But that’s exactly what he’s been doing in Queen Elizabeth’s Girls’ School, in High Street, Barnet, this week.

In a week-long acting workshop, organised by charity worker Tori Jacovides, Mr McGann’s Drama Direct company gave acting lessons to 37 children from the borough.

The workshop, known as the Gadfly project, culminated in a performance of a play about Socrates and his musings on democracy, with one half acted live and the other recorded on film and played to the audience on a large screen.

Mr McGann, who played John Lennon in the Liverpool and West End productions of Lennon, said: “The concepts of philosophy are much more accessible than we as adults think. In fact the children can enlighten us on some of the concepts as they see it with a certain innocence.”

Barnet Council funded the programme, which is linked to the Ben Samuel Trust.

With the £5,000 awarded, Ms Jacovides, who works for the trust, hired Drama Direct’s services, to offer children experience of stage and film production — as well as a lesson in philosophy.

She said: “So much of the acting industry is shrouded in secrecy and it shouldn’t be. We wanted to demystify the process and make it accessible for children.”

Although Mr McGann was confident that the ambitious project had been a success, he admitted it had been a gamble and described the children as “Gadfly guinea pigs”.

Staging the play for the first time also gave him and his colleagues the chance to identify problems with staging the production and fine-tune the experience for the next round of participants.

But this didn’t deter the young people involved, who all seemed to enjoy the experience.

Arianna Marsh, 12, said working on the production had been “loads of fun”, but admitted having some difficulties with the script.

She said: “The play is really good but it’s an adult play so some of the words are really difficult.”