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Dominic Cooke Adaptation

Noughts & Crosses

AQA GCSE Drama

Prescribed forAQADominic Cooke adaptation
How to use these examples: distinguish evidence from the prescribed adaptation, documented production choices and your own defensible interpretation. Unless explicitly labelled otherwise, staging ideas are possibilities rather than board requirements.
Sephy, a Black Cross student, elevated in a red school uniform while Callum, a white Nought student, stands in the lower acting space of a divided live-theatre set.
Stage picture: Levels, costume and colour make the social hierarchy legible while Sephy and Callum remain visually connected across it. Stark Drama teaching visual.

Study the play

Reading, performance and design

Directorial concept builder

Choose a coherent staging language, then test it against the prescribed adaptation and the exact moment you are answering.

Minimalist / Brechtian: Strip the stage back to a visibly theatrical environment. Use exposed lighting, simple scaffolding and visible role changes so the audience evaluates the politics rather than accepting the world as natural.

Professional productions

Official galleries, documented production choices and questions for comparing interpretations.

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