My monologue

Character Profile: Bridgette Rose

Age: 24 years old
Area of living: Clapham Junction, South London
Occupation: Manager of a hairdresser Salon

 

I still remember the day I opened this place, about Mid-afternoon. It felt great! To be finally opening my shop! The community were amazing, coming to see and support me. I felt loved and I felt my dream was finally coming true.

It’s a Friday evening and me and Sarah are still doing our clients hair. From the window outside I start to see large crowds gather, therefore questioning myself what’s going on. All of a sudden people started smashing in into the shop hundreds of them. At this point, I collected all my brushes, scissors and combs as they were all so expensive to get. Then one approached me by the neck   and said ‘Where’s the Goddam Money?’ I quickly opened the till and gave him all the money I had, as I was so scared for myself and the people around me. They were satisfied with what they had and soon scurried off into the distance.

I was left traumatized by the situation and so fearful that they may come back. I therefore told everyone it was best to leave and get out as soon as possible and so we all did.

Boyfriend Monologue

CHROAL: It was like the day waiting to unfold.

The day my heart sank. The day I found out my very own boyfriend was involved in the looting. I didn’t know how to react to this and also at the fact he was going to get taken away from me. The door had been put down and the police came violently towards us. We were getting raided but I didn’t know what for. They quickly grabbed my boyfriend, handcuffed his hands behind his back. I could see a glimpse of my boyfriend’s face. He looked at me as if to say ‘I’m sorry’. I quickly turned away, as I didn’t know how to react.

My tears couldn’t hold back I had enough, one by one tears started to pour down my face. I thought I finally found someone I could love completely with every ounce of my soul and now your being taken away from me? I was confused and shocked at my boyfriends actions. It was such a terrible feeling , watching the police take him away from me within seconds.

 

 

Research:Character development

Consequences from the riots

This article helped me for my research when it came developing a character in our play. It stood out to me as this shop keeper was greatly affected from the riots. He was a shopkeeper who lost thousands of pounds of stock during the riots. Through the article you see how its affected not only him but his family as they had to re-build again what they once did already. It shows that many of the rioters didn't really think about how many people may be affected by it and this is the major consequence of the riots. This story links in with consequences of the riots and the financial issues of the riots as well. Using this article and verbatim helped me to develop my overall character for the play. My character is a young woman in her mid 20s, her shop gets rioted and we see how it affects her as a person.

 

 

Videos about the Riots

In this video 4 teenagers are being interviewed about why there were involved in the riots. Many of them spoke about the struggles of life, and how the government are only helping the rich. One of them also spoke about how they tried their best to be noticed in this type of society, but he wasn't noticed and therefore he had to resort to other ways in order something to happen. All the youths talk about how the government should help them, money wise as it's hard to survive in this world. This just shows that the people involved in the riots weren't doing it  for fun but for the sake of voices to be heard and action to take place. At the time, the Government had changed many things and therefore a lot of young youths and adults were frustrated at the fact that the government went along with these decisions without asking the public. Such as University cuts, Education Maintenance etc
The people of the community understand that many of the youths are frustrated with the government and at the police. This was their only way for their voices to be heard. Many of the people in this video understand why many of the young people went out rioting. They understand that this was a class struggle between the rich and poor and also at the fact, that many of the youths feel isolated and therefore no hope for what the future holds. The old lady and man also talk about how Bad parenting has lead to the riots. They say how many of the parents don't control their children or have quality parenting and therefore bad parenting lead up to the riots.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UohyrhMKou0
This link is about David Cameron talking about the Riots. By describing the riots, he puts emphasis on how the ruling class will ensure that the riots are stopped. It also made the youth become quite annoyed at angry. This is because many of the youths felt he wasn't focused on ways how to help the troubled youths who were part of the disorder. At the end of the clip, he seems so eager to escape therefore showing that this matter is not as important as the other things.

Performance

Ideas/Suggestions for Performance

• Frantic assembly of us being the rioters; showing the emotion, anger and frustration towards the police and society
• Have characters of riots and have 3 scenes for them characters showing how life was before the riots, the tension leading up towards and the aftermath of the riots. This can help to show whether something was achieved or not. Also have a way of linking the characters to show that everyone came together for the riots.
• Have videos and sound to do with the riots. Fast-paced music to gradually build up the tension of the younger generation and the older generation.

Articles on the riots

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2011/aug/16/london-riots-young-people-voice-anger
This is an article about young people and how society made them feel frustrated inside which lead them to committing the riots. This article also has the voices of the young people and what they thought, how they felt and even the reasons why. I think this is beneficial as it gives us the actual reasons of why some people felt they had to commit these crimes. For example, many of the youths were using Mark Duggan's case as an excuse to riot but the rioting lead to the frustrations of our society, the police and the government. Many young people before this didn't really have a voice and therefore by having these riots they wanted to get across a message which has not been heard and would like to be heard by the voices of young people.

We could also pick out bits of their extracts to work on in scenes or to add in our dialogue.

Ideas/ What we could do

I also think we shud maybe have like the conflict of the young generation and the older generation, like how they had to resort to violence in order for their voice to be heard ( The underclass) nd I also think we shud try nd show that although the riots were seen as negative, discruptive and full of violence a bit of positive things came out of the riots. Like many communities jonning up together to become one etc..
We could also show that there were positive aspects that came out of the riots, such as the government working on youths to secure the needs of what they felt they had lacked before and making sure that they can fit into society. Another positive could be the fact that many communities joined up together because of the riots which shows the unity and love people had for one another. Through this it opened doors, for many social events and clubs that may not have taken place in that area before. Youths can socialise with not only the young but with the old and have positive role models that can help them every step of the way.
Choral work and Frantic assembly would work well for this with movements to show the youth and the older generation conflicting.