GCSE Drama (AQA)

85 free revision lessons in 12 units. Open the course or go straight to a lesson.

Theatre Roles and Stagecraft

How a play comes to life: the people who make theatre, the spaces it happens in, and the languages of stagecraft.

1. Who Makes a Play: Roles in Professional Theatre
2. The Designers' Toolkit: Set, Lighting, Sound, Costume
3. Theatre Spaces: Configuration and Audience
4. Performer Skills: Voice and Body
5. From Page to Stage: The Rehearsal Process

Drama Practitioners and Styles

Stanislavski, Brecht, Artaud, Frantic Assembly: the thinkers whose ideas shape modern theatre.

1. Stanislavski and Naturalism
2. Brecht and Epic Theatre
3. Artaud and Theatre of Cruelty
4. Physical Theatre: Frantic Assembly and Beyond

Live Theatre Review

How to analyse a production you have seen: performers, designers, directorial choices, and effect on the audience.

1. Watching Theatre Critically: Taking Useful Notes
2. Analysing Performers: Vocal and Physical Choices
3. Analysing Design: Set, Lighting, Sound, Costume
4. Effect on the Audience: Evaluation Beyond Description

The Crucible by Arthur Miller

Salem 1692 as a mirror for McCarthyism: hysteria, conscience and the ruin of a community.

1. Plot and Structure: A Four-Act Tragedy
2. Characters and Relationships: Proctor, Abigail, Elizabeth
3. Themes: Hysteria, Reputation, Conscience
4. Context: Salem 1692 and McCarthy 1953
5. Dramatic Methods: Language and Genre
6. Staging and Design: Bringing Salem to the Stage
7. Performance Interpretation: Acting Proctor's Final Choice
8. Practitioner Application: Brecht and the Crucible

Blood Brothers by Willy Russell

Twins separated at birth on opposite sides of the British class divide, and the fate that draws them back together.

1. Plot and Structure: Two-Act Working-Class Tragedy
2. Characters: Mickey, Edward, Mrs Johnstone, Mrs Lyons
3. Themes: Class, Fate, Nature versus Nurture
4. Context: Liverpool, Thatcher and the Working-Class Musical
5. Dramatic Methods: The Narrator and the Songs
6. Staging and Design: Two Worlds, One Stage
7. Performance Interpretation: Playing Mickey at Seven and Twenty-Five
8. Practitioner Application: Brecht in Russell's Stage Directions

Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman / Dominic Cooke

An alternate Britain where Crosses rule and noughts are second-class: race, segregation and forbidden love.

1. Plot and Structure: A Dystopian Two-Act Tragedy
2. Characters: Sephy, Callum and Their Families
3. Themes: Race, Power, Love Across Lines
4. Context: Blackman, Cooke and the Politics of Adaptation
5. Dramatic Methods: Direct Address and Dual Narration
6. Staging and Design: World-Building on a Bare Stage
7. Performance Interpretation: Sephy and Callum's First Confrontation
8. Practitioner Application: Brechtian Distance and Naturalistic Truth

Around the World in 80 Days by Verne / Eason

Phileas Fogg's Victorian wager turned into a high-speed feat of multi-roling and ensemble theatre.

1. Plot and Structure: Eight Actors, Eighty Days
2. Characters: Fogg, Passepartout and a Cast of Many
3. Themes: Time, Empire and Adventure
4. Context: Verne in 1872, Eason in 2013
5. Dramatic Methods: Multi-roling, Mime and Storytelling
6. Staging and Design: A World on a Bare Stage
7. Performance Interpretation: Comic Precision and Ensemble Trust
8. Practitioner Application: Physical Theatre and Ensemble Storytelling

Things I Know to Be True by Andrew Bovell

Four siblings, two parents and the quiet revelations that crack open an Australian suburban family.

1. Context: Bovell, Frantic Assembly and Suburban Australia
2. The Story: The Phone Call to Autumn
3. The Story: Winter to the Last Summer
4. Characters: Bob, Fran and the Four Children
5. Themes: Family, Truth, Identity and Love
6. Form and Methods: Monologue, Movement and Season
7. Staging and Design: The Garden, the Bulbs and the Lifts
8. Exam Practice: Performer, Director and Designer

Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

Verona, two warring houses and the tragedy of teenagers who love against the world.

1. Plot and Structure: Five Acts, One Week
2. Characters: Lovers, Families, Friends
3. Themes: Love, Fate, Honour, Youth and Age
4. Context: Shakespeare's Verona and London
5. Dramatic Methods: Verse, Prose and the Sonnet
6. Staging and Design: Verona Then and Now
7. Performance Interpretation: The Balcony and the Tomb
8. Practitioner Application: Naturalism vs Heightened Style

A Taste of Honey by Shelagh Delaney

Salford, 1958: a working-class teenager, her unreliable mother and the friends who stand in for family.

1. Context: Salford 1958 and Theatre Workshop
2. The Story: Act One
3. The Story: Act Two
4. Characters: Jo, Helen, Geof, Peter and the Boy
5. Themes: Motherhood, Class, Race and Sexuality
6. Form and Methods: Direct Address, Music and Comedy
7. Staging and Design: The Flat, the Street and the Band
8. Exam Practice: Performer, Director and Designer

The Great Wave by Francis Turnly

Two countries, two decades: a Japanese family searches for a daughter abducted by North Korea.

1. Plot and Structure: A Tale Across Two Countries
2. Characters: The Hashimoto Family and Their Captors
3. Themes: State Power, Identity, Family Loss
4. Context: Japan, North Korea and the Real Abductions
5. Dramatic Methods: Cross-Cutting and Stage Directions
6. Staging and Design: Sea, State Apartment and Searchlight
7. Performance Interpretation: Hanako Across Twenty Years
8. Practitioner Application: Documentary Theatre and Brecht

The Empress by Tanika Gupta

Victorian Britain through Indian eyes: an ayah on the docks, an Indian MP at Westminster, and Queen Victoria's munshi.

1. Context: Gupta, Empire and the World of the Play
2. The Story: Act One, 1887
3. The Story: Act Two, 1891 to 1901
4. Characters: Rani, Hari, Abdul and the Queen
5. Themes: Empire, Race, Education and Solidarity
6. Form and Methods: Thirty Scenes, Songs and Languages
7. Staging and Design: Ships, Palaces and the Ayahs' Home
8. Exam Practice: Performer, Director and Designer

How to revise Drama

• Retrieval Practice
• Spaced Repetition
• Interleaving
• Dual Coding
• Elaborative Interrogation
• Knowledge Organisers
• Timed Practice

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