is used for the hulk of the ship used to transport the convicts. In 1789 Britain
transported convicts to Australia, as the loss of the USA meant a loss of the place
where they used to send most of its criminal classes and so they decided to send
them to Australia for a sentence of seven years.
To show the bad conditions they had to endure on the long boat trip there they all
had wide eyes looking desperately staring into mid space, showing the hardship and
the lack of energy Arscott had left. The ignorance to the whipping of his fellow
convict shows that it is normal to the convicts and that he has resigned to the
conditions he has to live in, reinforcing the harness of the their lives and what they
have had to endure. Punishment is one the central themes of the play ...When
speaking Ian Redford adopts a monotone pitch emphasising his lack of hope and
resignment to punishment .This changes, however with the line ‘Roast beef with salt
and grated horseradish.’ Ian Redford heightens his pitch and widens his eyes
showing Arscott’s excitement at the thought of this food reinforcing the sheer joy of
the thought of eating this food for the convicts highlighting the harsh conditions they
have been living in. When Arscott, Ian Redford wears murky, demure, brown clothes,
which are rag like and well worn, reinforcing the fact that he is a convict with no
money.
Throughout the play Arscott is represented as an emotionally strong character, with
a gruff, hard edge to his voice. However this falters in Act 2 Scene 1, where a group
of the convicts were imprisoned for stealing food from the stores and attempting to
run away. We once again see the harshness of the convicts world when Arscott
produces a piece of paper he calls his compass. ‘I gave my only shilling to a sailor
for it! He said it was a compass’. Redman shows Arscott’s sheer disbelief at this
statement by widening his eyes and speaking his lines fast. This also shows his
ignorance and lack of education of what a compass was reinforcing his class. This creates sympathy with the audience, for Arscott .
last scene relationship with Caesar
the compass a2 s1
In contrast to Arscott, the next character we see Ian Redford play Midshipman Harry
Brewer, who belongs to neither of the two social groups in the play, the convicts or
the officers. Ian Redford adopts a strong confident stance, with strong shoulders
contrasting with the previous slumped positioning, reinforcing the difference in the
two characters. He uses strong arm gestures and adopts a strong confident voice
with a cockney accent reinforcing the difference in the characters once
more, with him not being as high class as the officers but still higher than the
convicts. When Harry Brewer, Ian Redford wore a blue jacket on top of his clothes.
This simple accessory allowed the audience to clearly see the difference class in the
two characters he was playing, as well as the reinforcing the fact he belonged in the
middle of the two groups, with officers wearing tailored red jackets and the convicts
wearing dark rag like clothing. The bright colour showed us that he deserved some
respect from the audience as well as from the convicts, however got little respect
from the officers.
How did redford create a character who was paranoid and who went through a break down before our eyes. Pick out key moments where the actor successfully showed some of the characters key traits. How do the audience react to him? Did the actor meet the intentions of the playwright for this role?
In complete contrast to both characters Ian Redford also played convict Meg Long in
Act 1 Scene 5. In order to create a comical character to ease the high tension of the
play so far he adopted a hunched back, with his shoulders rolled in and his chest
stuck out and chin held high. Redford also adopted a limp and made his hands
appear claw like to show her age and that her body had suffered. He showed her
confidence by openly rearranging her cleavage in front of an Lieutenant as well as
touching Ralph, her superior, when? How touch? which no other convict had done
before this point and is very much in his face. When Ralph moves away from her
when exactly, Ian Redford shows her persistence by moving with him. This allows
pity to be created for Ralph, helping the audience to endear to him. Ian Redford
shows her confidence once more by thrusting his hips on the line ‘Shut your eyes
and I’ll play you as tight as a virgin’ . These thrusting movements is used to lighten
tensions from the previous scene in which Harry Brewers signs of madness were
first showing through. He also uses a witch like cackle which was used to be
intimidating and threatening to the Ralph aswell as adding humour for the audience. Other moments?
The final part Ian Redford plays is Captain Jemmy Campbell. He once again adopted
a jacket on top of his clothes distinguishing between the two classes again. Captain
Campbell is Ross’ sidekick, a superior officer, who is strongly against the putting on
of the convict’s play and always agrees with his views. Ian Redford shows
this by following Ross around, always being a few steps behind him. Campbell is
also portrayed as being drunk most of the time and so Redford adopts an
idiosyncratic speech pattern, making Campbell stumble over when? and slur his words and often not make sense. Redford also adopts simplistic facial expressions eg. Open mouthed wide eyed portraying the childlike simplicity about Campbell; however the fact Campbell is drunk most of
the time furthering this. Ian Redford adopts wild exaggerated gestures and facial
expressions adding a comical layer to the play. His actions also create comedy from the reactions of the other actors who give him confused looks. To portray the fact
Campbell is drunk Redford also adds senseless and random interjections into
speech. A final thing Ian Redford does to distinguish Captain Campbell from the
other characters that he played he acting out some of his lines physically. This was
acted as comical spontaneous actions from Campbell to aid what he was saying. When? Where he made you laugh ‘grenades ... war .. phew’ he acted the throwing of the grenade act1 s6 (p20) This once again gained a comical reaction from the others characters in the scene.
Ian Redford cleverly used difference skills to distinguish clearly between the four
different characters he played, come back to how he met the intensions of the playwright using difference pitches, body language and gestures
for each character.