London Riots Devised Piece (4)

Over the past few lessons, we have worked out a complete scene order of everything we would like to include in our piece. At the moment, our scene list is this following:

• Physical theatre scene (Ill manors)
• Rioter interviews
• NEW SCENE (what the rioters did)
• Police interviews
• NEW SCENE (emotional turmoil piece with animation)
• NEW SCENE (consequences scene)
• MP Speeches
• Ill manors reprise

We decided that we wanted to repeat the "Ill Manors" scene again at the end so we had a cyclical structure to our piece, this would imply that these events could easily happen again and the whole process/cycle would repeat. We wanted an "emotional turmoil" scene to show what the rioters are really thinking and going through, having just presented what they did. Also, in one of our previous lessons recently, we researched the story of the riots from witnesses and rioters points of view. We learned that the rioters who broke into shops stole what would "keep the party going" (i.e. alcohol) as opposed to things they need and would benefit them. The riots were described as a "massive free-for-all" with "everybody jumping on the band wagon". We thought we could include this in the "emotional turmoil" scene. We thought it would then be appropriate to have a "consequences" scene to show the outcome of the rioters actions. We also wanted MP speeches to show the thoughts and feelings of the government. 

New adapted MP speech monologue

Original MP speech monologue

Last lesson (28/09/15), we performed our MP speech monologues (above left) to the rest of the class. We were then given feedback on what went well and what needed improving. My positive feedback was that my speech was cleverly written, as it was made up of quotes from different politicians to make it as accurate as possible. Also, I had good posture, however I need to look up more (though I did this initially, until I lost my place in my script, so didn't look up as often as the piece continued). The main thing I have been asked to do is research previous conservative women and to re-write my script with conservative views (as opposed to somewhere in between conservative and labour).

I have now (01/10/15) done research into female members of parliament. I then narrowed this list down into conservative women who were "in office" at the time of the London Riots. After researching this, I looked to see if any of these women happened to make a speech about the London Riots; I found out that Theresa May (a British Conservative Party politician who has been the Home Secretary since 2010) did make a speech on the matter on the 11th August 2011.I have now rewritten my speech (above right) as if it spoken by a conservative woman. I've ensured it is as realistic as possible by including some quotes from Theresa May's speech. I also looked at pictures of Theresa May on google images to see how she holds herself/what her posture is like. This was so I could try and replicate it to make my speech look more realistic and sincere. I decided to clasp my hands together with my elbows out to the side resting on my hips as this gives the impression that my character is apologetic yet certain in that something needs to be done.