The major themes in our day out are the lack of education, opportunity and deprivation the inner city; discuss how Willy Russell makes the audience aware of these situations.

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The major themes in our day out are the lack of education, opportunity and deprivation the inner city; discuss how Willy Russell makes the audience aware of these situations.

The popular play and TV series our day out, written by Willy Russell was set in Liverpool in the 1970 's. At this time Britain was in the middle of an economic recession and huge job losses were a result of this. Because of the high unemployment levels, social deprivation was at a high, with many families being unable to afford proper food or clothing for their children for example. Many of the men who lived in Liverpool in the early 1970's would of worked either at the docks or in the factories, which were generally the only jobs the men could get, the few business people of the city also lost their jobs when Britain hit the recession so the unemployment levels were astronomically high.

The story is based around a group of kids from a Liverpool school who go on a day out to Conway castle in Wales. The trip is aimed at the children who go to progress class which is a special class that the kids who cant read or write properly attend. There are two very contrasting teachers in the play who want to treat the kids in totally different ways; these are Mr Briggs and Mrs Kay. Whilst Mr Briggs wants the trip to be for educational purposes Mrs Kay wants the children to have a good day away from Liverpool.

Willy Russell uses the idea of a school day out as a technique of presenting his views to the audience, he uses the characters to express his views as he puts his thoughts into their mouths and we learn many things just through the general conversations of the children. The first example of this we see is when Carol is speaking about their surroundings on the bus,

"Isn't it horrible eh miss."

This is Carol talking to Mrs Kay about Liverpool, she describes it as dirty and that she likes the nice places. Willy Russell has used Carol, as a mouthpiece to tell his readers exactly what Liverpool was like in the 70's and therefore the storyline is more effective. Throughout the play Russell continues to use the characters to express his own views in a more realistic way.

"They're must be a lot going they're all bloody backward round

here"

This is said in the opening scene by Les who is talking to Carol about the trip, it is apparent that Russell wants to make it clear that the standards of education at he time were very poor due to social deprivation.

The writer uses a lot of humour and contrasts it with more serious matters to keep the audience interested, when Ronson is speaking to Mr Briggs Russell adds a moment of humour,
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"Just where do you think you are?"

Ronson replies,

"Wales sir".

Another good example of this is on the coach when Andrews is talking to Mr Briggs,

"What do your parents say?"

Andrews then replies.

"Sir sir me mum says nott-n but when me dad comes in he belts

Me."

"What because you smoke?"

"No because I wont give him one sir!"

We find out more things about Andrews and his background as the play unfolds, again the conversation of the characters enlightens us the viewers about ...

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