Parents’ fury when pupils at £45,000 a year Millfield School are pictured giving the Hitler salute while watching an ‘educational’ play about the Führer
- Actor Pip Utton took to the stage dressed as Hitler for the part about fascism
- But several students in the audience were caught on camera snarling Nazi salutes
- Parents also criticized the school for booking the play on the eve of Yom Kippur
A £45,000-a-year private school is facing backlash from parents after several pupils watching a play about Adolf Hitler were pictured shouting a round of Nazi salutes into the audience.
Billed as an “educational exploration” of Hitler’s fascism, the one-man play saw actor Pip Utton take the stage dressed as Hitler and wearing a swastika on his brown uniform.
But images obtained by the Jewish Chronicle showed a series of young students, presumably around sixth grade, laughing and giggling as they gave Sieg Heil salutes toward the stage.
A Jewish father told the JC that he and other parents “felt sick” when they saw the photos, and was deeply dismayed that the play had been performed on the eve of the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur in September.
Students of the elite Millfield public school give the Hitler salute during a play about the Führer
In the one-man play, billed as an “educational exploration” of Hitler’s fascism, actor Pip Utton took the stage dressed as Hitler, sporting a swastika on his brown uniform.
The father, speaking anonymously, told the JC, ‘What the hell were the teachers thinking? It would not be appropriate to greenlight this type of play for school children at any time, and certainly not on the eve of Yom Kippur.
“The school must have been aware of the content and if not, it should have known. There is no excuse for this shameful error of judgment.’
A parent also claimed that the school initially offered no apology or explanation for the behavior of the students, the content of the play or the decision to stage it just hours before one of the most solemn Jewish religious holidays.
Instead, they claimed that the staff tried to cover up the students’ reaction to avoid a scandal by ordering students to remove any recordings or images they made of the piece or the audience’s reaction.
“The school’s only concern seemed to be impending scandal, so they tried to destroy the evidence. I am absolutely shocked,” the parent told the JC.
Millfield School is one of the most elite state schools in the country with alumni Romeo Beckham, footballer Tyrone Mings and current UK Defense Secretary Ben Wallace.
Located in Somerset, Millfield School is one of Britain’s most prestigious public schools with several famous alumni
The headmaster of the Somerset school, Gavin Horgan, told the JC when asked for comment: ‘We shouldn’t have performed this play.
“We are sorry for the pain that was caused and we have changed our approach to performance vetting so that this will never happen again.”
Utton, meanwhile, said he would have asked the school to book the play at another time had he known the Jewish holiday was coming.
But he also spoke of the play’s educational nature, explaining that he tried to manipulate the children into giving Nazi salutes to show how German citizens were being manipulated by Hitler and the Nazi party.
“I like to think I’m a sensitive guy. Perhaps the school should also have been more sensitive and look for another date,” he told the JC.
“I was in no way trying to glorify that awful, awful greeting. The point was to show how people can be manipulated and how easy it is. Trust me, it’s shocking for me to see it happen.
“They understood it was some kind of joke because they laughed about it.”