Author: Lis

In the scene that we saw today, we could tell that the foreman was a character who was very serious and that he was the classic boss that no one liked. The reason for this, was because the expressions on his face during the scene where he was quite serious and his posture was straight, which inflicted that we had power amongst his workers, and in a play, this would be easy for the audience to recognise.

The foreman as we could see had a hatred for his jobs and colleagues for whatever reason. It may have been because he had a bad experience earlier in his life that he looks like a man full of rage. And thats the beauty, we don’t know, which causes the audience to think in more depth and outside the box.

But again, he may be angry because his job is difficult, risky and important so he must be strict and professional so that the job that he has been issued can be fulfilled at an adequate pace.

He may completely different at home to at his working environment, due to the fact that he merely dent like his job and only does it to keep himself with a comfortable life (or for his family if he has one). For all we know, he could be the absolute opposite in his own preferred domain, than what he is portrayed to be like in the scene!

As we can see I decided to put two pictures of Generals enjoying themselves and savouring all the alcohol they can hold while they have soldiers who are dying on the frontline. In WW1 many generals weren’t actually trained but were picked for the job due to their wealthy background.

These images communicate to our audience that it would be ethically/morally wrong to do this nowadays, but back then it was seen as merely a part of daily life for generals. The audience is made to think about the thin line between right and wrong and where the limit is. Soldiers had almost no rights and it makes us think wether soldiers today get the credit they deserve for putting their lives in danger for their country.

Clearly it was wrong for generals to be enjoying themselves while thousands of soldiers were being slaughtered on the frontline, but, have things really changed since then? Should soldiers get more credit for their duties? Should generals be put under strict control so that they don’t abuse their power?

In my group, we were going to have a scene where a the man at war is about to cross no mans land while his wife is at home doing the “typical womans job” i.e. washing, cooking etc. We were going to have a moment, where just as the man is going cross no mans land, he takes out a chain where he and the woman at home kiss it at the same time. This moment is significant as it signifies how far away families physically were during WW1 yet how close they were just through something small like a chain or photo.

We decided that in our scene, the man gets shot in slow motion so that the audience sees the brutality of war. As the man gets shot, the woman at home receives a pain in her chest and at this point she clenches her heart in pain and falls to the ground. This specific part in the scene also showed our audience what it was like for families and women in WW1, to cope with the pain of having their husband killed, while still having to look after kids, elders etc.

In chapter 18, Mr.Wopsle Joe and Pip decide to go to the Three Jolly Bargemen and as Mr.Wopsle was speaking a stranger interrupted the conversation between Mr. Wopsle and the listeners, and asked questioned Mr. Wopsle of his thoughts on the subject of a murder that he was talking about. He then pulls Joe aside and says that someone that he is working for wants Pip and he will offer Joe money for Pip. Joe leaves it up to Pip whether he wants to go or not but doesn’t want any money from the stranger as he feels that it would be greedy and he genuinely wanted Pip to do what he felt comfortable with. “Lord forbid that I should

Summary of article:

• Four suicide bombers kill 25 people in a village in the north of Cameroon.
• The group of suicide bombers were linked to Boko Haram.
• Other members at the same day attacked different parts of that area.
• Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Nigeria have all combined a group of soldiers to fight against Boko Haram and push their lines back.

In Drama, we have recently been learning about Brecht’s V-effect. This effect was made to distance audience away from the narrative by making scenes humorous yet thoughtful for the audience, leaving them with a message or something to think about.

For example, we created a scene where character A and character B were neighbours, but one day, B accidentally runs A’s dog over. We had to create a scene where B tells A that he just ran his dog over. However, there was a twist to this plot as we were only aloud to use the word “grapes” in our scene.

Initially, when we performed the scene it was funny, however, we then explored how it actually wasn’t as funny as it seemed, and how serious the matter would have actually been in a live situation.

Clearly Brecht’s V-effect worked as we found it amusing at first but then we thought about it deeper and the scenes atmosphere changed completely…. we were distanced away from the matter and we were left with something to think about. It seems crazy to think that someone could be serious by using only the word “grapes” but who would have thought that it could distance us so much and make us think outside the box about the actual situation and the characters feelings?

By Lis Fejzullahu.

My book is called Dark Horizons and was written by the author Dan Smith.

It is about a character called Alex who lives in Newcastle and who spent most of his adulthood looking after his sick mother. Eventually, his mother dies and Alex has lost his way in life. He then remembers some money that his mother left behind for him. He decided that he was going to use that money to fly to Indonesia in an attempt to find himself.

When Alex finally arrives in Indonesia he takes a bus to see a majestic tourist attraction called Lake Toba. As Alex is on the bus to the lake the bus crashes and he is severely injured, however, a woman by the name of Domino is at his aid helps him to hospital. Domino is a extremely confident and attractive woman and Alex is drawn to her and likes her a lot. Over time they form a bond and Domino decides to take Alex in a “journey to find himself”. Domino leads Alex into a strange community which she lives in and is familiar with. Alex feels uncomfortable but pretends to like it for Domino’s sake. The community is strange and many secrets are hidden away from him and he is made to do some peculiar things to be “accepted” into this community, made up of these  westerners. Kurt, the main leader of the community and also Domino’s brothers is seemingly fond of Alex and wants him to stay at the community but Alex finds it too isolated in this community and some weird things had been happing recently, Alex doesn’t  feel that this is the right way to find himself again. Eventually, he feels far too uncomfortable and decides to sneak away and into a small hotel which he rented. He decided that he would find himself by doing the activities that a normal tourist would do. However he receives a message from Domino to wait for her for minimum a week so that she could escape with him as well. Alex is left in a difficult position as he doesn’t trust Domino since she has kept so many secrets from her but still decides to wait for her considering he has a small space in his heart left for Domino.

In the beginning of chapter one Pip (the main character) is in his local churchyard because he is at the grave of his father, mother and 5 siblings and man with iron around his legs (escaped convict) come to Pip to ask him to do him a favour. The favour is to get the man a file and some food. Pip isn’t in favour of what the man is asking for so he scares pip by saying that there is a young man that he is restraining from killing him if he doesn’t get the stuff that he is asking for.

Pip then goes home to his sister and her husband and saves the piece of bread down his trousers that his sister gave him for dinner so that he can give it to the man who was at the churchyard. As his bedtime approaches he thinks about stealing more food and a file from the house while his sister and her husband are asleep. So, when the time finally came pip creeped into the kitchen and stole some food and took a file from his sisters husbands workshop (he was a blacksmith).