Through Detailed Reference To the Text Make Clear What We Learn About Mr Briggs and Mrs Kay and Show How Willy Russel Uses a Range of Dramatic Techniques To Manipulate Our Responses To Them At Key Points In the Play

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Through detailed reference to the text make clear what we learn about Mr Briggs and Mrs Kay and show how Willy Russel uses a range of dramatic techniques to manipulate our responses to them at key points in the play

Over the past few weeks our class has been studying "Our Day Out", a drama written by Willy Russell. It was first aired in December 1977 on the BBC. It is about a school trip to Wales for the 'progress class' of a Liverpool school accompanied by four teachers, two with very different ideas of how to teach the children. Mrs Kay, is one of the teachers on the trip is a liberal minded person who believes it is more important for the children to enjoy themselves on the trip, much to the annoyance of Mr Briggs. Mr Briggs is the complete opposite of Mrs Kay. He believes in strict discipline of children, because in his opinion they aren't capable of learning any other way.

As the story progresses, the audience receives more clues as to each of the characters personalities and traits. The first character we get to see is Carol, a thirteen-year-old girl who attends the progress class. She is introduced to the audience as she attempts to cross the road. She is stopped by Les, the lollipop man. She explains to Les that everyone who is in the progress class is going on a trip. Les doesn't know what the progress class is so Carol explains it's for all the "backwards" kids. I noticed here how Carol has no problem with telling Les that she is 'backwards', because to her it seems normal. The scene then cuts from her to the playground at the school, and Mrs Kay is introduced to us for the first time. She asks the rabble of children in the playground to follow her if they have permission for the trip but haven't paid yet. All the children follow her yet she remains calm, but looking at Mr Briggs is a different story. He surveys the scene from a distance with obvious disgust on his face. This is an obvious comparison between Mrs Kay and Mr Briggs and their attitudes towards the children. We also notice that Briggs was the driver of the car earlier that sneered at Les the Lollipop man giving a further clue to his character. Scene three is the Headmaster's Office and Briggs is demanding that he goes on the trip too. The Headmaster agrees and then Briggs tells the headmaster what his opinion is of Mrs Kay, "She always reminds me of a mother hen rather than a teacher". The scene cuts again back to the school gates and the playground with Mrs Kay and the children. Mrs Kay appears to break character when she shouts at Maurice, a small, twelve year old boy, "Maurice! Come away from that road will you?". We then see that he has jumped a fence and got onto the road. Mrs Kay didn't punish him like a teacher would but more like a mother would. This shows Mrs Kay's mothering and caring nature. Two more characters are introduced now, Reilly and Digga. They beg Mrs Kay to let them go on the trip and she says that they can go if they get permission from their form teacher, Mr Briggs. As both boys run off to get permission Mrs Kay stops them and tells them to bring a note. When they ask what for she says, "I wasn't born yesterday, Brian Reilly, and if I don't ask you for a note you'll just hide behind the corner for ten minutes and say he said you could go". This shows that Mrs Kay knows the children well and is capable of looking after them because she relates to them better than the other teachers. It seems like in these opening scenes the audience is shown how patient Mrs Kay is and this is further demonstrated when the Bus Driver is introduced. The Driver seems to have a prejudice against the children because they are from the progress class. He stops them getting on the Bus and demands that they are checked for chocolate and lemonade. He isn't really bothered by this but feels as if he needs to assert his authority. Mrs Kay could blow up at this point and with good reason but doesn't. Instead she takes the driver aside and delivers a speech that makes the driver change his mind, "Ronny, the kids with me today don't know what it is to look at a bar of chocolate. Lemonade never touches their lips. These are the children, Ronny, who stand outside shop windows in the pouring rain, looking and longing but never getting. Even at Christmas, at Christmas-time when your kids from the better schools are opening presents and singing carols, these kids are left to wander the cold, cruel streets". This speech causes the driver visible grief and he completely turns around on the subject and gives one child some money to go and buy sweets from the shop. What the driver didn't see was when his back was turned all the children had loads of chocolate and drinks. Even Mrs Kay knew they did and in her words she, "lied like hell", to get the children on the Bus. This shows that she follows her own rules to help the children as much as she can. This again, is more like a mother than a teacher.

The next speech is one of the best speeches to compare between Mrs Kay and Mr Briggs. It is about the rules of the day. Mrs Kay emphasises her rules on having fun, "We want everyone to enjoy themselves, so lets have no silly squabbling or doing anything that might be dangerous to yourselves or to others. That's the only rule we have today: think of yourselves, but think of others as well". This quote sums up perfectly what Mrs Kay stands for. In her opinion, this trip is to let the children have fun and experience something they might not normally get to. Willy Russell uses a direct comparison between Mrs Kay and Mr Briggs to emphasise the differences between them. When Mr Briggs gets on the Bus he delivers his set of rules to the children, "We don't want you to think that we don't want you to enjoy yourselves today, because we do! But a lot of you haven't been on a school visit before so you wont know how to enjoy yourselves. So I'll tell you. To enjoy a coach trip we sit in our seats. We don't wander up and down the aisle. We talk quietly to our neighbour, not shout at our mates four seats down. Are you listening, girl! We look nicely out the window at the scenery. And we don't do anything else. Don't worry, I've driven in my car behind school coaches and seen it. A mass of little hands raised in two fingered gestures to the passing cars. Yes. But we wont do that will we? Will we". This is completely the opposite of Mrs Kay's speech. Briggs speaks to them as if they are babies, telling what to do and how to do it. He obviously doesn't trust them, and perhaps is a little scared of them and feels the need to keep them under control unlike Mrs Kay who lets them have more freedom but probably keeps them in better control. Also in this speech we must look at Russell's use of dramatic techniques. Staccatos are used when Briggs speaks. As he shouts at a girl his voice changes from low to high. This gives the impression he is really mad, and no one has done anything wrong yet. Briggs prejudges the children on his past experience with other children. We can see this prejudice when he says, "Don't worry, I've driven behind school coaches and seen it. A mass of little hands raised in two-fingered gestures to the passing cars". Briggs thinks that the children would have done that had he not said otherwise, just because he has seen other children do it. He is probably right though, they would have done it if he hadn't of said. Proof of this can be seen if you look ahead and see that the children do it anyway even though Briggs specifically told them not to. In this paragraph of text, Hines allows Briggs to associate with the audience. Most people would have seen what he is talking about, "a mass of two-fingered salutes...", and if not probably has done it themselves at some point. This association makes the audience more sympathetic with Briggs's plight, because things like that do happen. Also it is a good point to note that Briggs acts much like the driver did before Mrs Kay delivered her little speech to him. The driver sees this and thinks he can change Briggs by talking to him in much the same way as Mrs Kay talked to the driver. When Briggs finally gets back on the Bus he looks confused and mutters to Mrs Kay, "We've got a right head case of a driver". This just further shows that the driver is very gullible because Briggs really knows what the kids are like and the driver is silly to think he can make Briggs think otherwise and he still hasn't noticed all the chocolate and sweets on the Bus, a lot more than what the boy bought with the money the driver gave him.
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The next scene of importance is the scene six, and at the start Reilly and Digga are attempting to light a cigarette at the back of the Bus. This is a good point that shows their views towards Mrs Kay and Mr Briggs. A little kid says to Reilly and Digga that he is going to tell miss (Mrs Kay), but Reilly and Digga don't seem to care. They say, "Go'n tell her. She wont do nott'n anyway". This is some good proof that Mr Briggs's teaching methods are better. When the little kid replies he says, "I'll ...

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