The first play, Love is a Many Splendoured Thing by Alan Bleasdale, was commissioned by BBC School Radio. It takes its title from a popular song, and looks at the ways in which they have to work in a pair like two reporters, to find out what 'young love' means to a number of people. This is essentially a play about the relationships between two people. On the Face of It by Susan Hill, is also about the relationships between two people. It is about the relationship between a fourteen year old boy, Derry, who has been badly disfigured in an accident, and an old man called Mr Lamb. The play discusses isolation, and suggests that such a condition is often self-imposed. The central character in Mr Bruin Who Once Drove the Bus is also something of a misfit, but Don Haworth's treatment of the theme is light-hearted. That is not to say his play is without its serious moments, and even a touch of near-tragic pathos. Our Day Out by Willy Russell chronicles an inner-city Liverpool school's day trip to Wales. Although this is in essence an amusing play, it also poses several serious questions about authority, discipline and freedom in school.
Follow-up activities are included to encourage further thought.
See More Educational: English literature
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Liverpool playwright Willy Russell is a National Curriculum approved author whose play Blood Brothers is a set text at GCSE. Mark Gunton is a head of English in Derbyshire.
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