Examine how the audience's opinion of Bamforth changes as the play

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Examine how the audience’s opinion of Bamforth changes as the play “The Long and the Short and the Tall” progresses.

“The Long and the Short and the Tall” takes place in Malaya during the Second World War. The title of the play comes from a song that was very popular during the time it was set. The whole point of this play is highlighting the war and people’s attitudes to war. Bamforth is one of the major characters in the play and the audience’s opinion of him changes throughout. At the beginning, the audience’s impression of the character is that he is stubborn, sarcastic, and insolent. However, this changes when the Japanese soldier arrives. It shows a different personality to Bamforth and this is the beginning of the audience’s opinion towards him changing. His relationship with other characters changes as well. He jokes with the Welsh character, Evans, as he seems to be the only one who understands him. Whitaker is a young soldier who is in charge of the radio and trying to communicate with the camp. Bamforth takes advantage of his age and ridicules him. He is rude and sarcastic to everyone including those who have authority.

At the beginning of the play, the character, Bamforth, comes across as opinionated when he and the rest of the group are talking about their home lives. He has a small argument with the others when he says that all women will be cheating on their husbands and boyfriends because they have been away for so long.

“For all you know she could be weaning one by now”

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This shows that he doesn’t trust women and Americans with them.

All of the characters are stereotypical and he is automatically disliked from the beginning by being a classic person from London: loud, arrogant and immature.

The audience become more familiar with Bamforth through his interactions with the other characters in the patrol. They are bored and isolated and therefore have a lot of time to talk. Bamforth is disliked by most of the characters apart from Evans. He jokes with Evans and is very friendly with him. The audience know this because they have a joke argument and ...

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