Giles Woodforde on a romantic play explored by Magdalen College School

It’s vital A-level exams one day, and straight into a major acting role only 24 hours later for 18-year-old Clio Takas. As she puts it: “It’s going from mental to physical energy. There’s no point in worrying about exam results because you don’t know what they’re going to be. So it’s good to just focus on the play.”

Clio is playing Guinevere in Idylls of the King, the major drama production in this year’s Magdalen College School Arts Festival. Idylls is a cycle of twelve poems by Alfred, Lord Tennyson which tells the story of King Arthur, his knights, and his disastrous love for Guinevere.

“I think he idealised her in his mind,” says Clio. “He just wanted a wife, I don’t think she was ever the love interest for him. It’s Lancelot who really loves her — I’m a romantic, and was rehearsing the scene just now where they have to part from each other, and it was: ‘Why can’t she just run away to his castle with him?’”

Lancelot is played by 16-year-old Daniel Blick.

“I’m the one she betrays her husband for,” he explains with a wry smile. “She lets the whole kingdom fall into ruins because of me. She also betrays Lancelot’s best friend. Lancelot isn’t a nice guy at all, but I guess that if you love someone that much, it’s all worth it.”

Idylls is being directed by RSC associate artist Joanne Pearce, who also adapted Tennyson’s original. Why, I ask, did she chose this text?

“I knew that there would be a lot about the First World War this year, but I wanted the kids to think about the sacrifices involved. We all ask the question: ‘Why were the soldiers so brave, how did they find the courage to go over the top?’ The classic thing is that they were cannon fodder, but history tells us otherwise. It was the commitment and ideas of particularly the young officers, several of whom came from Magdalen College School — all the houses are named after boys who were killed.

“I discovered that the Arthurian legends were used to raise morale during that period — including Idylls. The idea of dying for your country, dying to protect the women that you love; purity; integrity; justice: those were the themes in the books those recent ex-schoolboys read.

“But the production isn’t all about ideas: I wanted to hone their stage fighting skills, for instance, and of course the actors love that.”

There are more than 20 fight sequences in the play, including a major battle, assorted sword fights, punch-ups, and even a river fight. In the school hall, there are sounds of clashing metal and flashes of gold and silver — King Arthur has a specially designed Excalibur — as a fight rehearsal proceeds. In charge is the hugely experienced Malcolm Ranson, fight director on more than 50 RSC productions.

“Working at the RSC, you do get the chance to do big battle scenes,” he tells me. “But of course here it’s students of quite a young age, so we can’t do a battle scene that’s too realistic: there’ll be a lot of people on stage, and it just takes one person to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and there could be a problem. But it’s still one of the biggest fight shows that I’ve worked on, it’s fun. Some of the students work harder than some professional actors I’ve worked with. Also they tend to pick things up very, very quickly.”

As rehearsals proceed, actors nip in and out for costume fittings with designer Rebecca Brower. She cut her teeth with a vengeance as a design assistant on the Olympics opening and closing ceremonies, but it was a teacher at her own school, just down the M40, who first awakened her interest in stage design.

“I was always the one who could do art at school. The Wycombe Swan is my local theatre. so I emailed them at quite a young age, and said: ‘I know you have a youth theatre, are there any openings for a design assistant?’ It all started from there.”

Idylls of the King
Oxford Playhouse
July 3-5
Tickets: 01865 305305 or visit ticketsoxford.com