This December, as Oundle prepares for Christmas, 16 school pupils from Oundle School will be travelling “over hill and over dale” to Shanghai as part of an exciting venture.

The pupils, selected from those in the Sixth Form taking the Theatre Studies A2 level course, will be led by Kathryn Francis and Simon Kent. They will perform William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, at The Stahl Theatre on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th of December before flying to China to put on another three performances at the Jinyuan High School in Shanghai.

The idea first arose when Charles Jing, an Oundelian from China, suggested that local schools would enjoy seeing an English play by English school pupils. Oundle School Headmaster Charles Bush has supported the venture from the start, due to his belief that “the best possible cultural exchange [is] for us to export performances through our pupils’ involvement.”

Kathryn Francis, who is directing the play, selected A Midsummer Night’s Dream because the benefits for the pupils would be huge, since it is a set A Level text. She is passionate about the trip and believes that it will be “a real challenge, but ultimately very rewarding.”

The students in Shanghai will be experiencing a stage Shakespeare production for the first time, having been introduced to the play in their English lessons, although there will also be Chinese subtitles projected onto a screen for those who find the play hard to follow.

The trip, lasing ten days, will include ample time for sampling local culture. Simon Kent, head of Chinese at Oundle School, is accompanying the trip to ensure that the cast encounter no difficulties with the inevitable language barriers, as well as acting as a guide around the area. The trip, he believes, will be “absolutely lovely”, because it will combine two very different cultures.

Whilst in Shanghai, the cast will spend time in their host school and hopefully be given a chance to take part in such traditional activities as martial arts and calligraphy. They will also travel on the Maglev train, the fastest train in the world, visit the Jin Mao tower, one of the tallest buildings in the world and spend time in the Old City and Yu Gardens, with one of the highlights being a boat cruise down the Huangpo River.

Claire Parsons, 17, who will be playing the part of Quince, told the Oundle Chronicle that she was “very excited about the trip” and that as well as being able to consolidate her A2 level set text, she hoped to pick up some basic phrases in Chinese to enable her to communicate with the Chinese students in their native tongue.

The leap from The Stahl to Shanghai may be a big one, but it is certainly worth attempting. If the venture is a success, it could be the first of many yet to come.