Our Day Out

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A major theme in ‘our day out’ is the lack of education and opportunity for young people in the inner city. Using scenes from the play show how Willy Russell makes the audience                                       aware of this theme.

In this essay I will be explaining and discussing the main theme in the play ‘Our day out’. I will use the scenes in the play to show how author Willy Russell made the audience aware of the lack of education and opportunities for young people in the inner city of Liverpool in the 70s. The main theme in the Willy Russell play is a class known as the progress class which is taken by Mrs. Kay. The class has been given an opportunity to go to Conwy castle in Wales on a school trip. However the class has been tagged along by; a deputy head teacher, two loved up teachers and two bullies. Also it includes many stops to unfamiliar places such as; a shut cafe, a crazy sweet shop, an empty zoo, a fun beach and a wacky fun fair. It points out the depressing present and empty future for these students from the backstreets of Liverpool, as there is high unemployment, no education and social deprivation such as; poor living conditions, loss of money, jobs, and lack of aspiration amongst the community.  

Carol Chandler is 13 and is the first and last character seen in the film. She is shown to be a deep thinker which means her thoughts are profound and intellectual where she likes to go over things in much detail. Her appearance and behavior leads us to believe that Carol’s background is very poor. This is proven by the passage of the book which states

“Carol rushes along the street wearing a school uniform which doubles as a street outfit and her Sunday best.”

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It also seems as though she has not had a lot of guidance at home. This can be seen when she is crossing the road at the beginning of the play with Les the lollypop man you can also hear that she has an obvious lack of education, in most cases it seems as if she is unable to find the words to use, for example.

“Y’know.....all the thingy like. The dirt an’ that (pause) I like them nice places.”

This quotation suggests that she hasn’t got a wide range of vocabulary, and she is a girl who dreams of ...

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