Blue Remembered Hills by Dennis Potter (TV/Play) - review
Dennis potter, a famous writer who writes plays which are set as a T.V/play scripts. In his early days as a writer, Potter wrote a remarkable TV/play script which goes by the name of Blue Remembered Hills.
Blue Remembered Hills is a straight forward realistic play existing through the life of seven young children, he did twist the rules when adults played the parts of seven year old children, it may seem peculiar when you are reading it, but as you see the play its pretty impressive of how easily you think of them as essentially being seven/eight. The core reason why adults are as an alternative of seven year olds because seven year olds obviously cannot act well enough.
On this play, Dennis devoted all his skills into developing some incredibly varied character personalities. The play starts off in a summer countryside masking how perilous it really is, Willie a decent smart boy, slightly chubby, roughly clothed with his grey shorts and overshooting grubby white socks starts the play, at this moment his eating a cooking apple and imagining his a spitfire plane, which evidently was normal for children to visualize being a rank in the army as it was 1943 when the play was set, in a time of war, in a hot summers afternoon in the southwest of England surrounded with lush green forests and a prisoner of war camp nearby, where it all starts and ends.
Ending the critical position with Peter [second character in the play who is an intolerant dim-witted boy dressed similar to Willie] combating and spitting in Willies face for a bite from his apple, and to show what a powerful bully he is but risking his intelligence as Willie makes up that the apple is poisoned and scares Peter.
Peter trying to hide his fear after what Willie said they wonder into a conversation about Donald who is the character I was assigned to concentrate on, also nicknamed Donald Duck "[Lack of resources but something about him being splay-footed.]" that's how we know why he his called that. Donald is such an abused child that his mind matches one of a criminal.
As you directly listen to their conversation they acknowledge that Donald is "scared of everyone," and is physically abused by his mother, "hit em with a shovel right across the yud," Donald is abused ...
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Peter trying to hide his fear after what Willie said they wonder into a conversation about Donald who is the character I was assigned to concentrate on, also nicknamed Donald Duck "[Lack of resources but something about him being splay-footed.]" that's how we know why he his called that. Donald is such an abused child that his mind matches one of a criminal.
As you directly listen to their conversation they acknowledge that Donald is "scared of everyone," and is physically abused by his mother, "hit em with a shovel right across the yud," Donald is abused so he would have a different view of many things, and young children don't really like people who act differently to them. Donald has a bundle of horrific history with his personal as well as social life, as you might presume he has a horrible life. Donald's father is a soldiers sent to war and captured by the enemy, the worst of the worst, the Japs more commonly known as the Japanese. Donald's mother is a sexually promiscuous says Peter's mother, "You only have to look at her bed sheets." So he was raised by someone that doesn't really understand him as well as a mother should, therefore he is mostly raised finding things out by himself rather than getting advice and knowing before hand.
The two boys notice a squirrel and stream after it meeting two other characters, Raymond and John, Raymond is similar to Donald because they way he speaks, he totters, like Donald, Raymond has been bullied and understands Donald more than the other children. The crew combine forces and entrap the squirrel up a tree. This event is like a rehearsal to what happens at the end, like the squirrel Donald is entrapped in a barn with nowhere to escape, like the squirrel has no other way down but to meet the children like Donald has no choice and ends up meeting the fire. Dennis has done this as a preparation to something much worse, and something much worse does happen.
Once the four boys thrash the squirrel to death, Willie and Raymond are the ones who first realise what they had done and burst into tears, while Peter wants to cut its tail off to show everyone what he had done. Peter tries to bully Raymond into giving his knife so Peter can cut the tail off, but John interferes and both look like they are about to fight but Peter backs off and they carry on walking. Willie comes up with the idea to bury it and Raymond says to make a coffin, with one sudden joke, "Cough cough" comparing a coffin with cough because of its similar laugh and the whole mood is changed with laughter's. Once grieving because of its death, to one little joke and its all forgotten about. A view into a Childs mind, we see how easily children can change their feelings.
In the barn we are introduced to the rest of the cast, Angela who is a pretty girl who all the boys love, Audrey is Angela's admirer and wants to be like her so she follows her everywhere, she's not as preaty as Angela. This is the first time we get to see Donald duck, he isn't like the other kids, and he doesn't even look like the other kids. "Quote of description," So now we have physical proof that he is not cared for as well as he should. Donald and the girls are playing a game called mummy and daddy, in this game they pretend to be a family member, Donald is playing the part of daddy while Angela mummy, Audrey on the other hand is left out.
Donald uses a lot of swearing when he is speaking possibly mimicking his father, "Bloody," since the play was during the World War 2 so their parents would be angry with the Germans and using bad language a lot so the children would pick up from them. Donald gets close to Angela, "Give us a kiss" and pulls his arms forward to hug her but she moves away and hugs himself with glee. This shows that he is never hugged and so hugs himself.
When Angela calls the doll which she pretends is her daughter that she has been a naughty girl, Audrey says, "Smack her one Angela" and Donald says, "There will be no smacking here, not in my house," He hates hitting children because him himself gets smacked and he doesn't like it so he protests against it. Once Donald acts like he has cut his finger, "Cut the bloody bugger off," Audrey goes to heal him as she takes the part of nurse and Angela gets jealous and whispers "Quack!" which Donald finds very insulting and Audrey advises him to hit her and Angela says, "She'll skin him alive," meaning his mother which Donald complete backs down because he is scared of his mother. Donald now has come down to a low level and feels very very threatened, it's a "who will be the leader", and "who will be the victim" game and Donald is the victim.
And the girls take full advantage and team up against him. They continue to chant, "QUACK QUACK QUACK QUACK" and start to toy with him.
After the girls have left Donald is a crouched in a foetus position, in a protective position and rocks to comfort himself. He chants, "Come back dad, come back dad, come back dad." Once most of the scenes where Peter and John have the fight over power they all come up with a plan, to lock Donald in the barn. Donald has this disease called Pyromania so he set a bit of the barn ablaze and is not aware that the rest of the party is going to lock him in the barn. Every one goes to the gate and locks it and the fire inside goes into an inferno, only after sometime does Willie realise what was happening and tells them all to open up. [Come out Donlad!] But John makes the biggest mistake, {I'm gonna tell your mam} at this point Donald gets scared even more and kind of gives up and choose not to go out and gets burnt alive.
The gang run of really far and run to these fields where they all rest and can not see each other. The reason why Dennis choose to split them up is because they had been together all that time and now they all had to think for themselves and realise what they did themselves and how to deal with it. This is the same as the Squirrel incident where they regret it afterwards, a view into a child's mind, a do-now-and-think-later-act .Throughout 'Blue Remembered Hills' the audience is drawn into the totally convincing world of childhood but see with horror, through adult eyes that the cruelties, alliances, manipulations and, yes, tragedies endured at 7 are no different from those experienced at 27, 47 or 67.
By Abaz Abazi
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