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Illustration by Sarah Horne
HOW TO BEAT A GIANT
TEACHER’S RESOURCES
WRITTEN BY SUSANNA STEELE
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PAGES
CONTENTS
3-4
A VISIT TO THE UNICORN THEATRE
5
SYNOPSIS AND THEMES
6
MOLLIE WHUPPIE AND HOW TO BEAT A GIANT
7–8
THE STORY OF MOLLIE WHUPPIE
9
STORYTELLING: THE ADVENTURES OF MOLLIE
WHUPPIE
10
MOLLIE WHUPPIE: CREATING A PICTURE BOOK
11
EXPLORING CHARACTER: WHAT’S IN A NAME
12
PERSONAL STORIES
13
POST-PERFORMANCE DISCUSSION
14-16
TITANIA KRIMPAS – DIRECTORIAL APPROACH
17
CURRICULUM LINKS
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A VISIT TO THE UNICORN THEATRE
With these teachers notes we aim to help you make the most of your visit to see
the production of How to Beat a Giant. When we choose a play at the Unicorn we
ask ourselves a number of questions:
¾ Does the material ask ‘big questions’ – as children do?
¾ Does it therefore have complexity, ambiguity, possibly contention?
¾ Does it resonate with possible meanings?
¾ Does it’s strength lie in the gaps left for contributories and
interpretations?
A visit to the theatre can have a profound impact on
children; opening them up to new worlds - new ideas
they may not have encountered before, emotional
identification with characters and experiences being
played out live in front of them, and challenges to their
perception of the world.
It is difficult to predict how children might respond to a
piece of theatre; what will stay with them long after a
performance will depend partly on their individual
experiences and understandings of the world, it can be
a very personal experience. But theatre is also a
shared event, a social activity which can offer a class
the opportunity for exploring different perspectives and
understandings of the same story.
In all of our work at the Unicorn we present a vision of learning where the limits of
language do not define the limits of thought; where multiple perspectives and
different ways of seeing the world are celebrated; where problems have more
than one answer; where the children’s perceptions, interpretations and
imaginings are accepted and honoured.
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TEACHER’S NOTES
In these notes we aim to offer practical support to help you to prepare the
children in your class to see the production, to access themes and to acquire new
strategies to develop their understanding and engagement in the theatre event.
In preparation for your visit to see How to Beat a Giant, there are a number of
things you can do with your class which will allow the experience to be deepened
and extended. The teacher’s notes have been developed in a way to offer
suggestions that are simple and easy to use and at the same time leave spaces
for your own teaching styles and for further developments should you find the
exploration productive with the children in your class.
There are many ways in which your visit to the theatre can meet priorities within
the Key Stage 2 curriculum and we have indicated these links on Page 16 of
these resources.
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HOW TO BEAT A GIANT SYNOPSIS
It is bedtime for Lenny and Sniff and, before she turns off the light, Jo the
babysitter is telling them the story of Mollie Whuppie. Jo goes downstairs, leaving
the children to go to sleep, but Lenny and Sniff are still wide awake and it isn’t
long before Lenny makes Sniff turn the light back on. She then suggests that they
play a game - Mollie Whuppie and the Giant. When Sniff is reluctant to join in
Lenny threatens him until he relents and they begin to act out the story with
Lenny directing Sniff in all the roles he has to play while she becomes Mollie, the
clever, feisty heroine who always beats the giant.
As Lenny sets out, as Mollie, to cross the ‘Bridge of One Hair’ for the third time to
steal the Giant’s ring there is a flash of lightning and rumble of thunder and
everything changes. Suddenly, there, in their bedroom, is the Giant woman from
the story and Sniff is no longer the little brother Lenny has always pushed
around. Now the children are no longer play acting - they are in the story and
everything has become a matter of life and death! How can they stop the Giant
from roasting them in butter and eating them for supper? Could trying to beat the
Giant change Lenny’s relationship with Sniff forever?
THEMES IN THE PLAY
This complex and powerful piece of theatre
takes a look at bullying behaviour as we
witness Lenny’s relentless teasing and
threatening of her younger brother, Sniff.
However this is not just a play about the bully
and the bullied but about the complexity of
sibling relationships and the use of wit,
cunning, courage and collaboration to
overcome fear and seemingly insurmountable
danger.
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MOLLIE WHUPPIE & HOW TO BEAT A GIANT
Mollie Whuppie is the traditional story at the centre of Diane Samuel’s play How
to Beat a Giant. The play opens as Jo, the babysitter, is telling Lenny and Sniff
the end of the story and the children act out the story when she has gone.
Although the storyline of Mollie Whuppie is revealed during Lenny and Sniff’s
enactment it might add to the children enjoyment of the performance and their
ability to follow the action if they knew the story beforehand.
Mollie Whuppie is a well known story within the Scottish tradition and Mollie is
one of the great female heroines of traditional story in the British Isles. She is a
brave and courageous girl who cleverly outwits a giant to save herself and her
two sisters from certain death. The story is similar in shape to Jack and the
Beanstalk in that Mollie returns to the Giant’s castle several times to steal the
Giant’s treasures and outwits him each time.
There are several editions of the story in print that teachers may find in the
school library or on line. The story was collected in Scotland in the nineteenth
century and was published in two well known 19th century collections: Joseph
Jacob’s English Folk and Fairy Tales and, as Mollie Whuppie and the Double
Headed Giant, in Flora Annie Steel’s English Fairy Tales. Both of these versions
are easily available on line at following links:
www.authorama.com/english-fairy-tales-2.html
www.mainlesson.com/display.php3?author=steel&book=english&story=_c
ontents
Walter de la Mare retold the story and his version, illustrated beautifully by Errol
le Cain, was published by Puffin Books in 1983 and, although it is now out of
print, it may be available in the school library.
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THE STORY OF MOLLIE WHUPPIE
As with all traditional stories, Mollie Whuppie is a good tale for telling orally. This
synoptic version gives all the detail necessary for teachers who want to have a
go at telling their own version in a way that is right for their class.
Hearing stories together helps to build a community in the classroom. It is
through the stories we tell and the stories we hear that we come to understand
ourselves and others. Stories provide an enriching context for the development of
language.
C
ast out by their parents because they had no money to feed them,
Mollie and her two sisters walk and walk through the forest until
they reach a house and when the door is opened by a giant woman
they ask if they can come in and have something to eat. She invites them in
and gives them some food.
When the Giant comes home and finds the girls there he orders them to
stay the night and to share the bed with his daughters. As they are going
to bed Mollie notices that the Giant puts a golden necklace round each of
his daughters’ necks but around her and her sisters he puts a rope of straw
and, when the Giant has gone and the daughters are asleep, she swaps
these over.
In the middle of the night the Giant comes into the room armed with a
club and feels the necks of the sleeping girls. When he feels the rope
necklaces he beats the girls with his club thinking they are Mollie and her
sisters. Mollie and her sisters run away from the Giants’ castle as fast as
they can over The Bridge of One Hair. They run and run until they come
to the King’s Palace where they tell their story and the King tells Mollie
that if she can bring him the Giant’s magic sword her oldest sister can
marry his oldest son.
Mollie goes back to the Giant’s house and slips in unseen. When the Giant
is sleeping she grabs the sword but in doing so wakes him up. He chases
her over The Bridge of One Hair but she escapes and he shouts after her:
‘Woe to ye Mollie Whuppie, never ye come again!’
Mollie takes the sword to the King who marries off her oldest sister to his
oldest son. The King then asks her to go and get the Giant’s magic purse of
gold and in reward he will let his second oldest son marry her second
oldest sister.
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Off Mollie Whuppie goes, slips into the Giant’s house, waits till he falls
asleep and then steals the purse from under his pillow. But the Giant
wakes up and chases Mollie back over The Bridge of One Hair. She
escapes and he shouts after her: ‘Woe to ye Mollie Whuppie, never ye come
again!’
Mollie takes the purse to the King who marries off her middle sister to his
middle son as he promised. The King then asks Mollie to go again to the
Giant’s house and to bring back the ring of invisibility and if she does he
will let her marry his youngest son.
Off Mollie goes to the Giant’s house and hides under his bed. As soon as
she hears him snoring she tugs and tugs at the ring on his finger and off it
comes. But as she’s slipping it into her pocket the Giant grabs her by the
hand.
‘ Now, Mollie Whuppie, if I had served you as you served me, what would
you do?’ he asks.
‘I’d put you in sack with the cat and the dog and hang the sack on the
wall. Then I’d go to the forest to get a big strong stick and then I’d come
back and beat the sack until you were dead.’ says Mollie, who already had
a plan.
The Giant does exactly as Mollie said and when Mollie is hanging in the
sack she begins to sing: ‘Oh, if you could see what I can see!’ She sings
and sings until the Giant’s wife hears her and pleads with her to let her
see what she can see. Mollie agrees she can but she needs to cut a hole in
the sack first. When the Giants’ wife cuts the hole, out jumps Mollie. Into
the sack jumps the Giant’s wife and Mollie sews up the hole.
Soon the Giant comes home from the forest and begins to beat the sack
with a stick and because of the noise of the cat and the dog he can’t hear
his wife shouting. But Mollie doesn’t want the Giant’s wife to die and out
she runs from behind the door and when the Giant sees her he chases after
her . Over the Bridge of One Hair goes Mollie and the Giant can’t follow.
Mollie takes the ring to the King and is married to his youngest son.
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STORYTELLING – THE ADVENTURES OF MOLLIE WHUPPIE
Once the class has heard the story of Mollie Whuppie they could work in pairs to
retell it. If two classes are going to see the performance of How to Beat a Giant
one of the classes could prepare a telling of Mollie Whuppie to share with the
children in the other class.
From one story other stories can grow! Mollie Whuppie outwits the giant and his
wife with her cleverness and her courage. The class could create more of
Mollie’s adventures for example: Mollie Whuppie and the Dragon’s Gold,
Mollie Whuppie and the King of the Deep Sea Kingdom, Mollie Whuppie
and the Creature from the Swamp.
Get the class to work in pairs to create an idea for a new story, giving them
time to work out the adventure before telling their story to another pair.
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MOLLIE WHUPPIE – CREATING A PICTURE BOOK
Once the class knows the story of Mollie Whuppie, or has created tales of her
new adventures, they could create a wall display of pictures and text that tells the
stories or they could make individual illustrated books.
Freeze framing is a good way of enabling children to imagine the story world
vividly and it enables them to present visually an understanding of characters’
responses that is hard to express easily through writing.
Divide the class into small groups and ask each group to think of three
moments that they think are the most important ones in the story.
Ask the groups to turn these three moments into ‘freeze frames’. These images
will not only help to sequence the events in the story, they can be used as
inspiration for illustrations in the books.
As each group presents their work to the rest of the class they can comment on
what they see – looking for the feelings, atmosphere and relationships evoked by
the images. Some groups may have chosen to show the same moment but they
will have interpreted it differently and different ways of representing the same
scene is worth discussing.
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EXPLORING CHARACTER: WHAT’S IN A NAME?
Writers often chose particular names for characters that will give some clue to
the sort of person they are and how they behave. Thinking about why Lenny’s
younger brother in How to Beat a Giant is called ‘Sniff’ will help the class to focus
in on the character and why he has his nickname. It could also open up some
discussion about nicknames in general.
If the points raised in the discussion are recorded on an outline figure of Sniff, the
class could come back to the speculative discussion after seeing the production
to review their understanding in the light of evidence from the play.
These questions will help to guide the discussion:
¾ How do you think Sniff might have got his name?
¾ Why do you think the playwright, Diane Samuels, has given Sniff a
nickname but not Lenny?
¾ Are there times when Sniff could enjoy being called Sniff?
¾ Could there be times when he hates being called Sniff?
¾ Can you ever give yourself a nickname?
¾ Do you think it is ever unkind to give someone
a nickname?
Sniff sniff
¾ Do any of you have nicknames that you enjoy
having?
SNIFF
SNIFF
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PERSONAL STORIES
Both How to Beat a Giant and the story of Mollie Whuppie have relationships
between brothers and sisters as central elements. Mollie Whuppie looks after
her sisters and protects them from the giant and, in Diane Samuel’s play, the
dynamics of the relationship between Lenny and Sniff is played out in the
bedroom that they share. Many children in the class will also share bedrooms
with their brothers or sisters and those who don’t have siblings will have close a
friendship with whom they share many experiences, including sleepovers. But
the stories don’t have to be limited to what happens at bedtime, there are lots of
other times when siblings or close friends either quarrel or have fun together, fall
out and make up.
Share stories of family life when you were Lenny and Sniff’s age or read them
poems that centre on family. Poems worth looking out for are:
Skating on Thin Lino by Gareth Owen
My Brother’s on the Floor Roaring by Michael Rosen
Tricks by Michael Rosen
Little Brother by Tony Mitton
Dear Mum by Brian Patten
I Share my Bedroom with my Brother by Michael Rosen
There’s also an excellent anthology of poems that provides a good source of
poems about family life: Haven’t You Grown - poems about families. Selected
by Brenda Hollyer and published by Kingfisher in 2003.
Ask the children to talk in pairs about their experience of having a brother
or sister or close friend. When is playing with them fun? When does it
stop being fun? What adventures do they get up to? Do they ever fall out?
How do they make up if they fall out?
After these ‘oral rehearsals’ the children could create poems from their stories. A
simple stanza form such as:
I hate it when………
but I love it when …………
is a helpful and adaptable structure.
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POST PERFORMANCE DISCUSSION
After the class has been to see How to Beat a Giant they will have thoughts and
opinions about the production that they could discuss together. They will need an
opportunity to talk about their personal responses to the play as well as
performance.
Question that would help to structure the discussion include:
Personal responses: What did you enjoy? What did you think of Lenny and Sniff?
What moment from the play do you think you’ll remember for a long time? Did
anything make you laugh, make you feel scared, surprise you? Was there
anything that reminded you of you and your brother or sister? When did you
make a connection between what was happening in the play and the story of
Mollie Whuppie? In what ways did knowing the story of Mollie Whuppie help you
to enjoy the play?
Reflections on the play and the performances: (It might be helpful to refer to the
interview with director, Titania Krimpas, in this discussion) What did you think of
the way the actors portrayed Lenny and Sniff? How successful do you think they
were in using their acting skills to play characters that were younger than their
real age? How do you think lighting helped to create atmosphere? What effect
did the music have on you as you watched? How did the director make the arrival
of the Giant in Lenny and Sniff’s bedroom a surprise?
If this is the first time the class has been to the Unicorn
Theatre teachers might also like to get the children to reflect
on the visit – the building; the theatre; the difference between
seeing a live performance and watching TV or a film.
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TITANIA KRIMPAS – DIRECTORIAL APPROACH
Titania Krimpas is the director of How to Beat a Giant. Here she talks about
some of her ideas and considerations as she goes into the first week of
rehearsals.
How is the Mollie Whuppie story explored in the play?
In How To Beat a Giant there is a story within a story.
The play begins with the audience hearing the end of the Mollie Whuppie story,
told to Lenny and Sniff by their babysitter Jo. Just before she turns off their
bedroom light, Jo finishes the story, recounting the moment when Mollie triumphs
over the giant. This sets up initial questions about how a giant could possibly be
outwitted by a little girl, and allows us to observe Lenny and Sniff’s responses to
hearing this story. An early hint that all is not well in Sniff’s world is when he says
‘Them stories always end so happy?’ – ‘Why can’t one end not so happy for a
change.’
The Mollie Whuppie story provides a way of delving inside the emotional and
imaginative worlds that the children inhabit, and allows us to explore their
feelings and relationship in an indirect way.
What do you think will be most challenging for you as a director as you
bring this play from page to stage?
One challenge for me will be to balance detail and complexity with the need to
allow space for the ‘play’ between the child characters, Lenny and Sniff. I want
their interaction to feel utterly spontaneous. As adult actors are playing children,
we need them to be as truthful and believable as possible; at times this means
them being much freer and more anarchic than they are in their everyday lives. It
is important to investigate and analyse the text - to discover it's detail and
complexity but equally important to find it's raw energy.
Another challenge will be to ensure that the theatrical tricks (such as Sniff’s legs
growing) appear to be effortless. Having planned and designed the show in
theory, we now need to find elegant ways of dealing with these moments in
practice.
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What are you most excited about as you embark on this production?
I am very excited about working with the whole creative team to create an
integrated piece of theatre. I think working with Ben’s music in rehearsal will
definitely enrich the process.
I am excited about how we may use the set we’ve created to spark off the
imaginations of the actors; the bedroom as a real place, and the forest of their
imagination potently lurking in the background.
I am also very pleased to have come across the actors working with us as they
are all real imaginers; and I expect to have a lively dialogue with them in the
process.
What emotions do you hope the audience will experience whilst watching
the play?
I would like the audience to be fully engaged - to listen, look and imagine closely.
I hope that the metaphor of the giant will be as wide-ranging in terms of
responses as I think it is. I hope they experience excitement, a dash of fear,
empathy for Sniff, recognition of Lenny’s journey and a sense of relief when the
children join forces. I also hope that they will find the naturalness and spirit in the
script as funny as I do.
What questions do you think children will leave the play with?
Who are my giants? Who intimidates me?
What’s my relationship like with my brother/sister/friends?
What do I do when I want to play MY way?
How were Lenny and Sniff able to beat their giants?
How did Sniff become a giant?
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What character do you feel you identify most with – Lenny or Sniff?
Personally, Sniff. Being a younger sibling, I identify with his quietness and slightly
side-ways way of looking at the world. We have talked about bouncing off Sniff’s
imagination musically – to explore what goes unsaid in the text and as a
counter-point to Lenny’s very strong voice.
Having said that I’ve also noticed times when I can feel a bit Lenny-like (and how
this changes depending on who I’m with). I think what’s so clever about Diane’s
script is that as well as creating four identifiable characters she has created
archetypes that could also be aspects of ourselves. For example we all have the
capacity to bully (like Lenny) or to give in (like Sniff), when we feel threatened.
It’s what we do with that awareness that counts.
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CURRICULUM LINKS
Both the performance of How to Beat a Giant and the suggested classroom
activities have clear links to the National Curriculum and the PNS Framework for
Literacy.
There are National Curriculum links to:
English: En1: Speaking and Listening. En 3 : Writing
PHSE: 4: Developing good relationships and respecting differences between
people
The PNS Framework for Literacy links are with the Year 2, 3 and 4
objectives for:
Strand 1: Speaking
Strand 2: Listening and Responding
Strand 3: Group Discussion and Interaction
Strand 4: Drama
Strand 7: Understanding and Interpreting Texts
Strand 8: Engaging with and Responding to Texts
Strand 9: Creating and Shaping Texts
Teachers will be able to make specific links to relevant objectives that connect to
their year group and to their teaching for the term.
CONTACT
You can contact the Unicorn Education Team on 020 7645 0570 or email
education@unicorntheatre.com
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