The main themes in Our Day Out are lack of education, lack of opportunity and social deprivation. Show how the writer makes us aware of these themes

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The major themes in 'Our Day Out' are the lack of education, lack of opportunity and social deprivation in the inner city. Show how the writer makes us aware of these ideas.

Our Day Out is set in inner city Liverpool in the mid 1970s. The fictional school is located in a neighbour with a high crime rate, drug use, prostitution, high unemployment, poverty and domestic abuse. The kids in the schools remedial class are all portrayed as economically unstable, poor and deprived children with different stories which reinforce the key ideas of the play. In 1981 there was rioting in Toxteth, a deprived district of Liverpool of which high unemployment rates were blamed for. The setting of the play acts as a prelude to the riots.  Willy Russell adds elements of subtle humour which make the play funny and sad at the same time

Early on in the play we are introduced to Carol Chandler who is evidently one of the poorest children in the class when she is revealed to be “wearing a school uniform which doubles as a street outfit and a Sunday best, eating half a sandwich and clutching a carrier bag” Here Russell is introducing us to one of the focal characters with a description which suggests that Carol's family can't afford to buy here a school bag, have to share food and can't afford many clothes. This portrayal of Carol is important as it shows the signs of social deprivation and establishes her economic status. She describes Conwy as “somewhere far away, I forget” (in response to Les the lollipop man's question as to where the trip's destination is). This also tells us she hasn't been far from home before since if she'd been to Conwy before she'd would know it is only about an hour away from Liverpool. We feel a little sorry for Carol and feel guilty about her having to live like that while our homes are often full of materialistic goods and appliances that we take for granted. When up on the cliff she refuses to return to the trip and wants to stay in Wales. We immediately get a sense of her naïvety though it is a quality rather than a weakness and she clearly doesn't mean any harm at all. Carol has another quality of being appreciative of life's simple things i.e. nature,since she can't posses materialistic products for a small price, this is a quality we all hope to have . She reveals to Mrs Kay-whom she looks to for mentoring, friendship and sometimes motherly love, which she can't get at home that she wants to live in “one of them nice places with trees and that” and underneath Mrs Kay's encouraging façade, she knows Carol is stuck in the poverty cycle and wants to get out. “Them nice places” also shows Carol's lack of education. This is tragic but Carol's implicit disorganisation and forgetfulness accounts for the play's humour-I find this technique a very clever and powerful way  of entertaining the audience and conveying the reality of these deprived children's lifestyles.'

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The play also focuses on Andrews, one of Carol's peers in the progress class who has a similar lifestyle.  Firstly, we learn that he smokes. He tells Reilly (an older ex-progress class student) to “Gis a ciggy”, in return for opening the window. Willy Russell continues with the theme of social deprivation by exposing Andrews' mother as a prostitute when Digga refers to “all them fellas she picks up” This also tells us that Andrews' mother not only has to practise promiscuity but has to risk her life on the streets of inner city Liverpool and we start to ...

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