A Study of a Play Titled Yosser's Story

A Study of a Play Titled Yosser's Story

Alan Bleasdale wrote a series of five plays called 'Boys from the

Black Stuff '

They are all about five different people in five different situations

of unemployment.

I will be studying a play called 'yossers story '.

In the mid 80's unemployment was very high, riots broke out as the

unemployment stormed through Liverpool looking for justice. The plays

which Alan Bleasdale wrote were all through Liverpool, thousands of

people were unemployed throughout Liverpool.

To this day people see the unemployed as lazy, poor, unhappy and

homeless, people who just walk around the streets, sleeping outside,

on park benches, in shop doorways, in cardboard boxes, no homes, no

jobs and no money, left to beg on the streets.

Traditionally plays have followed a set of events in three parts.

The first part of the play is called "exposition" were everything is

under control and calm. The second section of the play is called

"complication" where all order has been dispensed with and chaos

reigns.

The third and final part of the play is the resolution where order

returns and in most comedies it normally ends in a marriage, the end

result is happiness.

A Protagonist is the main character of the play, the leading man or

woman such as Bruce Willis in Die Hard, or Pierce Brosnan as James

Bond, a protagonist always "saves the day". Yosser is the opposite.

Bleasdale's reasons for making Yosser an anti-hero was to educate

people into understanding what it could be like to be unemployed,

someone you may be able to connect with, the experience of

understanding what it would be like if we found ourselves in that

position.

Yosser takes his children to the pub. The Landlord of the pub says to

Yosser " Sorry Yosser - No children in here". Yosser once again just

stares blankly. The Landlord feels intimidated and lets them stay.

Yosser sits next to Grame Souness and says "You look like me" Graeme