Comparison Between Blue Remembered Hills by Dennis Potter and Blood Brothers by Willie Russell

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Comparison Between Blue Remembered Hills by Dennis Potter and Blood Brothers by Willie Russell

In January 2004 we performed a scripted assessment of Blue Remembered

Hills, this was based on research that we did about life in the Second

World War and the writer Dennis Potter. In this essay I will compare

Blue Remembered Hills to Blood Brothers by Willie Russell. I will be

looking at the similarities and differences between the two pieces of

performance.

Blue Remembered Hills is very different from Dennis Potter's other

plays as it is much more naturalistic and the simplest in form and

content. However this simplicity and naturalism in the writing is in

contrast to the performance. This is because Potter has chosen to have

his seven-year-old characters played by adult actors, this is not in

keeping with the naturalistic themes of the play. By doing this Potter

has managed to highlight the children's emotions and actions by having

them all most magnified.

Blue Remembered Hills is the story of a group of seven, seven year

olds on a summer holiday afternoon. They are Angela, Audrey, Peter,

Donald (Duck), Willie, Raymond and John. It is set in the west of

England in 1943 and at this time Dennis Potter would have been around

the same age as his characters, this means the facts, language and

storylines in the play could have been based on his experiences as a

child. Blood Brothers is about a group of people from Liverpool in the

1960's to the 1980's. The main characters are; Mrs. Johnston, Mickey,

Linda, Eddie and Mrs. Lyons.

Blood Brothers was set from the 1960's to 1980's in Liverpool whereas

Blue Remembered Hills is set on a summer day in the west of England in

1943, during the Second World War, they are also both set at a

specific time in the past.

Both plays focus on childhood and the way children play. Blue

Remembered Hills has children as characters all the way through but in

Blood Brothers we see the children grow up.

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