Andrews is another character who helps Willy Russell to illustrate the theme of deprivation and opportunity. We can see how his background and future opportunity will be similar for the many others. Andrews father doesn’t live with the family and they hate him anyway “She hates him, we all hate him”. While chatting with Briggs, Andrews tells him that his dad comes home ever so often and gets aggressive when his wife and him argue. Andrew has also been smoking since he was eight years old and his father hits him when he doesn’t give him a cigarette. His family is very underprivileged and because of the lack of money his mother is a prostitute, which he is teased frequently about, but she also “goes with the blacks” as they pay more which makes the teasing worse
“you must have money cos they pay a fortune for a bit of white”. Willy Russell has a lot of skill to show details about Andrews’s background under the humour that the kids use to describe it. Andrews’s parents show a massive lack of parenting skills, they both let him smoke and that proves they don’t care about his health and the deprive him the knowledge that smoking can cause serious damage to his health. Andrew’s father, being away most of the time, we got the feeling that Andrews is living his own life with no one there to support or care for him. He’s so desperate to curb his addiction to nicotine he offers a Jam Sandwich in exchange showing his family has no money and a Lack of Opportunity and Deprivation.
With no attention at home he has no one to look up to and hasn’t
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learnt some vital lessons in life skills. Andrews is probably Willy Russell’s best example of a child with enormous deprivation.
Reilly is yet another example who illustrates the theme of deprivation and Lack Of Education. He too, like Carol, lacks a good education but not only does he have a poor education, he is deprived of a proper home life, his mother has been dead for 10 years and his father has a job at the docks but hates every aspect of it;
Reilly: My old man works down here, sir
Briggs: And what does he think of it?
Reilly: He hates it sir
What Willy Russell is suggesting is that Reilly will follow in his fathers’ footsteps and now he’s finished school there is no outlook for him, its dead and his life is already mapped out for him. That is a fine example of the lack of opportunity but Reilly never feels sorry for himself he is cheeky and arrogant to pupils and staff, telling Colin he will take Susan “into the woods for him” and he’s witty and has a sharp sense of humour as well. Reilly is generally only cheeky in front of his friends to look good but Susan succeeded in embarrassing him on the beach “Come on big boy I’m all yours” after this he get embarrassed in front of his friends and they all laugh at him. This shows that underneath he’s not the “hard” guy, just a softhearted and in the end he “gets with” Linda. Although Reilly is 15 he just got out of the progress class and still struggles to read and write, this shows Willy Russell lack of education theme in a contrast to Carol who’s still in the Progress Class. He also doesn’t know anything career opportunities but he too realises that Liverpool has nothing to offer “Its Friggin horrible when you come back to it” but we know he will probably follow in his father’s footsteps.
All this is tragic but handled with humour, like when Andrews is caught smoking and sent to the front but Briggs asks if it was Reilly and he “Swear on my mothers life” but Digga points out that “Don’t trust him, his mothers been dead for 10 years. The audience really feels that it’s tragic as the children’s lives are empty, meaningless and without direction, so Willy Russell’s themes are conveyed but we the audience don’t feel as if were being preached at and thus were more receptive. Some of the moments in Our Day Out are exceedingly funny and sometimes were made to feel sorry for the students but they’re not for themselves. This is a very good
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way that Willy Russell uses to make the themes have a bigger impact.
The conflict that developed between Mrs. Kay and Briggs, allows Willy Russell to build to a dramatic climax. After the whole day with Briggs telling Mrs. Kay what to do, she explodes and looses her temper at Conwy Castle and her outburst allows Willy Russell’s views to be explicitly promoted. What Willy Russell has done is used a character as a “mouth piece” for his ideas. Briggs has a very strict teaching attitude and believes Mrs. Kay only wants to be liked by the children and that she’s “on their side”. Briggs sees everything about the trip as chaos and tries to use strict methods to educate them but to no avail they just want to have fun and this is what Mrs. Kay organised this trip for. His chaos is their fun and Mrs. Kay realised this a long time ago. Mrs. Kay teaches very personally, letting children link arms and snuggle up to her on the bus, she knows there is no needs for them to be educated because they wont get a job anyway. It is this contrast of views that causes the argument Mrs. Kay is the pragmatist where as Briggs is the dictator/militarist.
Willy Russell’s views are shown through everyone, from Carol to Andrews or Reilly to Mrs. Kay. But Andrews and Carol are the best at explaining why the kids are as they are. They tell Mrs. Kay that if they had something to take care for they would look after it, but since everything they’ve been given has been taken away there not given anything and so take no pride in their environment. Conwy was used because it is a huge contrast from Liverpool, its beautiful ,idyllic setting is completely different from the row upon row of terraced house and smog filled air of inner city Liverpool. Overall it’s a brutal cycle that cannot be averted, the kids may have smashed things they didn’t want in the past and then now the “corpys” won’t give them anything to take pride in. Andrews and Carol both attempt to explain this; “Miss if it all belonged to us, miss, and it was all ours, not the Corpy’s but, ours, well, we wouldn’t let no-one wreck it would we? We’d defend it”
All the children desire is something that all of them actually want not anything put there and assumed they’d like it. Carol realises that the Corpy’s wont give them anything after they wrecked it, like the trees they used for fire wood on Bonfire Night, she has almost got into the mind of the council because the last thing they want to do is waste there money on something that will be broken in a matter of days.
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Andrews point is a very perceptive one and its in a way Briggs thought incapable this signifies that if they did have better surroundings, if they could take proud in their surroundings then they wouldn’t be like they are, if they had all these there life differences would be incredibly different.
Willy Russell also uses detailed stage directions concerning what the audience sees, these reveal to the audience what they need to think, see and feel. One of the best examples is at the beginning of the play when Carol is running up the road her school uniform which is probably her Sunday best all her things in a plastic bag which shows that her dad cannot even be bothered to get her a proper bag. She is also eating a sandwich, presumably for dinner, but she is eating it in the morning. Willy Russell uses Carol to exemplify the deprivation of the children. Although Willy Russell uses these stage directions none of the children care or feel sorry for themselves because they’re all in the same situation anyway.
The visual medium of television allows Willy Russell to us the device of a visual metaphor, a good example of a visual metaphor in Our Day Out is the captive bear at the zoo and how the children stroke the animals and this draws a comparison between the bear and the children. The bear is bred in captivity, its captive, trapped and in a cage where it cannot escape similarly the children are trapped in a dead end life, a cycle of deprivation, no jobs, no money now and there is no money later. There are aware that there future is bleak but they were born into this cycle of deprivation, lack of opportunity and lack of education.
The children are gentle to the animals and they believe the animals should have a better life, but it’s a cruel twist of fate that they should value the animals but can’t escape themselves. Its all about being in different surroundings, Ronson’s comment about the bear is very deep and he really believes the bear should be free but ironically so should the children except the children have no one to love them, no one to care for them and unfortunately that have no future. The bear is Carol, is Ronson, trapped under a life of deprivation. The children would have been better at school, gone to university or college and in latter life got a job. But this simply cannot happen because the children have the worst possible life chances because of there background and the life they are made to live.
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Willy Russell then moves to a dramatic climax, this is very dramatic because Carol is on the cliff, she wants to stay there, “I wanna stay here, its nice” but she can’t and Briggs gets angry with her, telling her “stop being so silly”. Carol then unexpectedly swears at Briggs, which makes him loose his temper more. Carol then explains to Briggs what she thinks he thinks of them “You hate all kids”. After this comment is passed, Briggs calms down and tries to talk Carol out of jumping, “What’s to stop you working hard at school from now on?” to which Carol responds, “Don’t be friggin stupid”. After a few more tense words Briggs gingerly approaches, arm outstretched, “Come on, Carol” and Briggs proceeds to promise her she won’t get told off but Carol is reluctant to discuss. We then get to the one of highest points of the climax, Carol moves towards the edge. Briggs is right next to her but her leg slips. At this point of climax we wonder if Carol will slip and Briggs, “who hates the kids”, will let her fall. Fortuitously Briggs grabs her in the nick of time and embraces her.
After the “incident” on the cliff we see a remarkable change with Briggs, he smiles, doesn’t shout and he even suggest going to the fair. But incongruously we are made to believe that he’s changed. Briggs starts to relate to the children, he rides the waltzer, eats candy floss and lastly with a cowboy hat giving a fish in a bag to Carol. But just as we think things can get better for the kids and Briggs has changed…our expectations are dashed; Briggs exposes the film or what I like to think of as the evidence of his fun. The end is sad but realistic. In my opinion Briggs is afraid that the children won’t have any respect for him and more importantly the head master. What Briggs doesn’t realise is that by being more like a Mrs. Kay he will gain the respect of the children, instead of being the “military dictator” he is showing them slides and making them learn, he should be more fun, more friendly and more motherly. After all the kids are off the bus and off home, the teachers go to the pub but Briggs “stays home marking”. There would never be any easy answers to the problems that the students and pupils have but as Mrs. Kay said;
“A day out won’t change anything”
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This play was and incredibly informative about the problems other children face and to be completely honest made me fell much humbler about my backgrounds and how lucky I am to be where I am, how I am and what I am. The views Willy Russell put forward are very important ones and although I’m not deprived of anything especially not education, I found it hard to realise that some children cannot read or write, remarkably children in England cannot read or write. Willy Russell themes on deprivation were quite hard hitting too, these children probably only have two pairs of clothes, no proper school equipment and sad as it may seem no love. Overall Willy Russell did exceedingly well to get his views/themes across and the unfortunate thing is 20 years on from these problems there still evident in the 21st Century.
