Our Day Out by Willy Russell

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Our Day Out by Willy Russell

For our second module, we looked at the study of the play ‘Our Day

Out’ by Willy Russell. The play is about a special needs class from

Liverpool going on a day out to Wales, and the different dilemmas they

put their teachers Mr. Briggs and Mrs. Kay through (like stealing

animals from a zoo).

We had to choose three key moments that we thought were the most

important sections from the play and where we thought drama was built

around. For us, the key characters in the story are Mr. Briggs, a

strict teacher Mrs. Kay, a gentler teacher, and Carol, a quiet pupil

in the special needs class. We used different explorative strategies

whilst developing and performing our drama. This essay is the response

to the play.

Our first key moment that we chose was a conversation between the

headmistress and Mr. Briggs. We thought this was a key moment because

it showed a drop in Mr. Briggs’ status. We got to this conclusion

after a group discussion. We decided to hot seat the characters in

order to develop them. We wanted to find out how Mr. Briggs really

felt about not having the total authority. Mr. Briggs developed into a

strict disciplinarian who disliked most people. However Mrs. Kay

developed into a sweet motherly type teacher.

Our second key moment was Mrs. Kay defending herself and answering

back during a disagreement with Mr. Briggs. We decided this was a key

moment because it let us show a completely different side to Mrs. Kay.

We used thought-tracking so we could show the audience Mrs. Kay’s real

anger. However the actor playing Mrs. Briggs found it difficult to

adapt to the change in character. To help her and the drama out, we

used the explorative strategy forum theatre so w...

... middle of paper ...

...ned her

status. Mr. Briggs responded by seeming to shrink so there was an

apparent change in status.

Our final key moment was marked by an aside by Mr. Briggs. The final

key moment shows Mr. Briggs destroying the film after the day out. We

showed him destroying the film as an aside so that the audience knew

something that the characters didn’t: Dramatic Irony. There was no

dialogue during the aside which made it much more effective. The aside

also suggested that Mr. Briggs didn’t change at all and that it was

all an act. It developed the audience’s dislike of Briggs even more.

Mr. Briggs however, regained his status once again as he was the only

character left on stage and he was centre stage so all eyes were on

him.

Overall I think our key moments were accurate and the explorative

strategies we used helped us develop our characters and our drama.

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