ABSTRACT
Plays have established themselves in the curriculum because children and young adolescents so obviously enjoy acting; even the shyest and clumsiest enjoy watching others act. The proportions answering 'Never' show that at all ages there is a large number of boys who do not read plays at all. The most obvious feature about the play read out of school is, at all ages, the preponderance of William Shakespeare. At 12+ there appear no plays–apart from the Shakespeare and some of the dramatized versions of other forms of literature–which would appeal to an adult. Senior School boys also read plays out of school. Senior School boys, like Secondary School boys, if they read plays at all, read more plays by Shakespeare than by any other dramatist. The only recognizably adult plays, apart from Shakespeare's, are Lord Dunsany's Night at an Inn, chosen by two boys, and Oscar Wilde's The Importance of being Earnest.
