Unit 9 - "Our day out"

                                       Radio Drama :

What is Radio Drama?

Radio drama is a dramatized, purely acoustic performance, there is no visual component included and it depends entirely on dialogue. There are 5 components included in radio drama, they are music, sound, silence, movement and words. Each one is important as they all play a part in radio drama. These 5 components helps the listener to visualise the characters and the story. 

Radio Play - Radio play is the most intimate way of telling a story. It has 2 strengths, having a visual medium and speaking to an audience of one.

 5 Components of radio drama:

1 -Music
 this can be used as introductory music to set the mood at the beginning and can also be used to show how the mood has changed at the end. Not only is music used to set the mood but its also used to help us move the script around, taking us from scene to scene and from place to place.                                                                                                                                                             

2 - Sound   Radio drama uses sound in 2 different ways, acoustic sound environment or for sound effects.

  

Acoustic is where the play is set and how that might change by what we hear, we could tell by the sound where the character might be located for example a scene in a cave will sound different to a scene set in a duvet. 

Sound effects are sound events which helps tell a listener what is going on ( too many sound effects will result in making things confusing)

3 - Silence  There are different types of silences here are 3:

1. Pause - A pause might indicate uncertainty, embarrassment a reluctance or a refusal.
2. Beat - A beat is a short pause, this indicates a change of sudden realisation or a sign of hesitation.
3. Silence - A silence is a long pause, (silence is powerful but it should not be overused)                     

4 - Movement  Sometimes two people in a room talking is all you need however at times it is good to make scenes busy or to make characters be on the move  

5 - Words   (words is the most important of the 5 elements) Words are the things that help us visualise pictures in radio drama for example the way we speak, the rhythm of our voices and the things we say or fail to say, the simplest words can make a picture, for instance "A table, on it a single cup" from this sentence the listener will be able to visualise the image. Adding words can also change the way you picture an image e.g. "an old cracked table, a single cup on its side". On one hand using words can help picturing the images in a scene, on the other hand using too many words can be counter productive and can make it harder for a listener to form images in their head.

The Beatboxer : Radio Drama

The Plot - 

The beatboxer is about a former great British beat boxing champion, who goes by the name Collin, his stage name is Subsonic or subs for short . Throughout the podcast I listened to The Beatboxer seemed as if he was trying to work on his career whilst trying to overcome some hurdles on the way.

The Theme - 

In the podcast/radio drama the beatboxer, one of the main themes is consistency, as beatboxing is something which takes time to master meaning Collin has had to stay consistent with work.

Another theme would be determination, through listening and analysing what Collin says and the emotion behind his words and sentences the audience can tell he is extremely determined to achieve his future goals and his future ideas. One of them being making a quartet with some of the guys near him, ( "making a quartet with some guys near me trying to do something experimental and put it in new places" were his exact words )

The Dialogue - 

All different characters have a different way of speaking, throughout the entirety of the podcast I have noticed a range of different kinds of emotion and what the characters are trying to convey. Some of these which I have noticed excitement, determination, conflict, happiness, fear, amusement and anger. In all of these scenes the audience can observe these different ways of dialogue through the characters depending o what they are talking about.

Did I Like The Characterisation -

Yes I enjoyed listening to the beatboxer as I was intrigued to know more, as I listened I understood that Collin was the protagonist. His character was very clear in a way that I could tell what he was saying, what he was doing and where he was. His character seems very down to earth and the audience could see his determination for beatboxing. As the radio drama gradually comes to an end 

What Kind Of Genre Did It Fall Into - 

The Beatboxer has fallen into the genre of comedy drama, this is portrayed throughout the entirety of the radio play.

How Were The People, Places, Events Represented Aurally ?

The people were represented aurally and so were the places and events, the audience can tell this by hearing the effects added on and by the way the characters would talk. Also I knew the location they were in just by listening to the sound for example I understood there was an ambulance in one of the scenes as I heard the siren going off.

What Did I Like About The Writing, Performance, Story ? 

In my opinion, I thought it was very engaging as I not too familiar with many podcasts listening to my first one gave me a slight interest towards it. 

What I Disliked -  

Overall, I did not dislike anything as I thought the entire radio podcast was very clear and enjoyable, the only thing I had to do was listen to it again to understand more or to maybe go over a couple things which I missed the first time round.

                                     "Our Day Out"

"Our day out" is a drama based play which was directed by Pedr James and written by Willy Russell. It is set in Liverpool, England in the 1970's and was premiered on 1983 in the Everyman  Theatre (Liverpool). 

The Plot - 

"Our day out" is about a school trip going to Conway Castle in North Wales. A teacher called Mrs Kay teaches a class of illiterate students called the "progress class". On the way to the castle the driver stops the coach at a roadside café which has a snack shop, the students take advantage and decide to shoplift  sweets and snacks. The driver then makes a second stop at Colwyn Bay Mountain Zoo, where the students try to steel some animals as they like them so much. The Zoo attendant realises it and rushes to them just as they about to leave and takes the animals which were taken. The coach finally reaches its destination ( The Conway Castle) and the students want to explore the grounds, cliffs and the beach. As soon as its time to leave one of the best behaved students Carol is no where to be seen and so a search is is issued by Mr Briggs. Mr Briggs finally finds Carol but also finds out that she is depressed as she doesn't want to return back home to the terrible condition she lives in. Carol is upset and threatens to jump off of the cliff, Mr Briggs convinces her everything will be ok and told her to join the rest of the group. Towards the end of the trip Mr Briggs suggests the coach makes one more stop at the fairground where the students can have some fun before the day comes to an end, Mr Briggs joins some of the students on some rides, he wears a fancy hat and also joins in singing the songs with the other students on the coach, all of which is photographed by Mrs Kay. Along the way two young teachers Susan and Collin (who are helping Mrs Kay supervise) must also deal with the fact that Reilly has a crush on Susan whilst two older girl students have a crush on Collin. Susan and Collin solve their problems by suggesting that Digga and Reilly tur their attention to the two girls.

The Theme - 

A major theme in "our day out" is the lack of education, deprivation and a lack of opportunity for young people who live in the inner city. The scenes in this play show how Willy Russel makes the audience aware of this particular theme .Having a lack of education affects young people in inner cities such as Liverpool, these young people have never been given a chance to experience a good education and therefore they are just stuck in schools where not many people care about the grades they achieve and what they will be doing after they leave school. These themes are brought up quite frequently during each and every scene, this shows what life could be like and that we should all be great full of what kind of education we have at this very moment.

The Dialogue - 

Low Educational achievement example mentioned in the play:

Carol: Y' don't know what the progress class is? It's Mrs Kay's class. Y' go down there in the week if y'cant do sums or writing. If y' backward like. (page 2)

Driver: We usually only do the better schools. (page 6)

Mrs Kay: You'll never teach them because nobody knows what to do with them. Ten years ago you could teach them to stand in a line, you could teach them to obey, to expect a little more than a lousy factory job.... most of them were born for factory fodder, but the factory's have closed down. (page 38) 

These examples show the lack of education they were all living in, the fact that the driver said "we usually teach better schools" implies that the school they were attending at the time were lacking illiterateness.

The characterisation -  Mrs Kay's character:

My character in the play "our day out" is a middle aged teacher called Mrs Kay. She is an open-minded, kind and tolerant teacher who values her students and treats them like her own. She is very understandable and she understands where her students come from her students and how each of them come from a deprived background. Mrs Kay does not believe in traditional teaching methods of discipline and high standards, she works in is a unsatisfactory learning environment where students are deprived of their educational needs meaning she likes to treat all her students respectfully and address they're poor behaviour with manners.

                                           CREPPE

Context :  

William Russel is an English dramatist, Some of his best known works are Educating Rita, Shirley Valentine, Blood brothers and Our day out. He was born on the 23rd August 1947 and is now 72 years of age. The play "our day out" is a television play about poor children from London, England. It's written and directed by Willy Russel and it first aired on 28 December 1977 at 9:00 on BBC 2. Later on it was converted into a full length stage musical. The play "Our day out" has many themes, one of the themes are a lack of education. This theme is expressed throughout the entirety of the play, mainly through the students as they show a lack of education. Another theme would be a lack of opportunity, as seen in the play the students don't have many opportunities when it comes to their education. The themes are very important in this play as its what Willy Russel tries to show the audience

Research : 

The research for this play was to search about my character and what she was like. At the beginning when we all received our scripts , our first task was to research about it. We had to research the writer of the play ( Willy Russel) who he was , what the plot is, the main themes and what they portray throughout the play and many more.

Planning : 

From the start, I've had to plan out how I will structure my work and what to research, planning makes a massive change towards my work as it helps me improve my organisation skills. I have had to also plan out my days as I have video calls with my class and teachers to talk about andgo through the script and unit 9 as a whole.

Problem solving :

Unfortunately, unit 9 came in a time of the Corona outbreak therefore we haven't had as many lessons as we'd normally have, as a result the class takes calls online and can contact the teachers via the school email. We have had many problems doing so, at the start I was unable to get onto any calls but I later was able to solve the issue. We've also had to cancel the final production as we aren't at school anymore. This means we ae going to have to be recorded whilst on an online call with the class. Doing this is going to affect us as there are many possibilities where it could go wrong ,from my previous experiences I've seen the screen lag due to not enough Wi-Fi, I have seen other students miss their cue because of not being able to hear us properly. We are going to have to try our best to push the problems aside and try to do the best we can to perform as we would on stage.

Evaluation :

Overall, I have really enjoyed doing this unit. The script is interesting and I love my character as I feel like I can express myself more by being is her shoes (Mrs Kay). I have learnt more about Willy Russel and more about who he is as a person, I find it so intriguing learning more about the acting industry, it allows me to get creative and imaginative with exploring my characters limits.

                                   Production Values

The Beach :

I am going to be talking about the setting of the beach in scene 32 and portray what I think it'll look like on a set during a performance down below.

Firstly, to start off I visualised what a beach looked like and what's normally on a beach. This might include, sand, beach chairs, water, bright sun, sand buckets with spades, shells scattered everywhere, maybe a bench. Listing these down helped me visualise the image much clearer in my head.

The first thing I would put on set for this is scene is fake sand to make the image look more surreal. To prevent any mess I would put the sand onto a plastic mat, this way it'll be easier to carry in and out as the scenes go by. When doing this there will be space for the characters to walk around as they need to have the space to manoeuvre. Secondly to make it look even more surreal I would put shells around in the sand, attention to detail is key as it can make the scene look more realistic.  

This picture is the closest example of what I could find, I am picturing the image to have less sand and for plastic wrap to be underneath the sand, however the floor will be covered in some ways, like this picture to the left.

Secondly, the next thing I had pictured was the water. This part is optional as I think the sand will tell the audience where the scene is set but if I was to add a water effect I would simply use something blue, for example this could be a long blue material ( it could be any material ) and layer is in front of the sand . 

Another thing I would do is place a beach chair on the scene, maybe on the sand as that's where I normally see them, this is extra but I feel like this would really finish off the scene and make it look as if its real life. The chairs I'm picturing in my head are the ones in this picture. Not only could I chose these chairs but I also have another option, I could use a long chair lounger which is what I personally like to use when I go to the beach, having options makes it better as you know you have a different variety of what to use.

Costume Design - Mrs Kay

My character Mrs Kay is in her early 40's, therefore I have hosen to go with more of a old fashioned look. The play first aired in December 1977 which helps me understand what type of clothing I should be wearing for my character specifically. 

Clothing -

• fleece
• long coat ( ideally buttoned and reaching her thigh )
• trousers
•  thin scarf wrapped around her neck 
• black smart shoes ( can be slip on shoes )
• a beanie ( hat )
• A lanyard with her name on it 

The list above is what I imagined Mrs Kay's appearance to look like. Whilst on stage performing my character, wearing an old fashioned style of clothing will help the audience understand this is not a modern play. I feel as if this outfit is suitable for my character, I researched Mrs Kay and the play itself and understood more behind the concept of the play as a whole.

Lighting :

As we have not been in college, we have not been able to work on the lighting for the play "Our day out "therefore I am going to be speaking about a past production and how I could have suggested a different lighting to make it much more intriguing to the audience.

Throughout the Citizenship play we focused more on the acting than we did on the lighting, which is good in a way as we could work more on ourselves however this meant we weren't able to add in any different lighting in with our performance. Using a different range of lighting during a performance makes it seem interesting and more intriguing to the audience. The only lighting we used in the performance was a general lighting which is a normal light.

 This picture is an example of what we looked like whilst on stage, the lighting we had was the same in this picture meaning the performance was not the best it could have been.

My style of lighting would be depending on the moods:

1. At the beginning of the performance the lighting should be neutral however it should be a spotlight directed at us on stage not a light across the stage entirely. 
2. when Amy talks to Tom the lighting should start to change into a light yellow as yellow is a colour of happiness
3. As the scene continues, there's a sign of romance when Tom starts to show his feelings towards Amy, at this point the lighting should drift into a light red colour as red conveys romance
4. After this the light would g back to neutral
5. Later on Amy accidently pours hot water onto Toms head, here the lighting should defiantly change as he is feeling anger and pain, a colour which represents both is red. the light should change into a dark red and as he gets better it should start to drift away going bac to a neutral.

What I would suggest / change in the lighting sector ?

Different scenes have different characters, this means that the lighting shouldn't be the same for each one. In my scene my character is Amy and my class mate Louis plays Tom. In different parts of the scene unexpected things  happen for example Amy pours boiling water on Toms head. The lighting was the same during this and during the performance as a whole.

Lighting goes beyond simply just making sure the audience can see the stage, using lighting can be used to establish the time and location in a play, the mood of the play and the kind of atmosphere portrayed in a play. Using colours with the lighting goes a long way in terms of keeping the audience interested.

I would use the colours to convey the moods of the play, for instants I would use a red light  to convey anger, yellow to convey happiness and blue to highlight sadness (in terms of weather blue can also convey rain/stormy day etc...). Secondly, I would prefer if the light was directed at the actors/actresses. Having a spotlight directed at you whilst performing can be nerve-racking however it focuses the audience more on the actor and less on the surroundings. 

We have used lighting in one of our plays, during unit 3&4 we worked with Ezra who helped us with adding on the lighting we wanted, from personal experience I think the lighting makes a huge different for both the actors and the audience. It makes it seem more surreal and looks even better. Not only did we use lighting for our silent movie but we also used  sounds to go with it. We used colours like Red, white, and many others.

                    OUR DAY OUT

WESTKING YOUNG ACTORS PRESENT:

Date & Time :                                               SAD

16th June 2020                                       HUMEROUS

7:30PM - £5.00/£2.50 concessions            FUNNY

Box Office - 10am till noon

A group of young pupils from a high school in London are going on a trip, Mrs Kay is taking her progress class on a trip to Conwy Castle but it doesn't quite go as planned. After one of the pupils are missing Mr Briggs ensures she gets back to safety.

Will the teachers be able to get the pupils back to school in one piece?...

 For any enquiries call  020 376 982 10

EVER SEEN A FAKE BEACH??

London ?? A beach?? YES here at Westking we've handmade our own beach !!!! Come an check it out our surreal looking beach for a spectacular experience.