Reflective writing on Performance Skills Module (Sep/Oct 2017)

The explicit development of the character 'Samantha Brent' and the reflection of the development process for the piece 'Misuse and Abuse'.

To begin this development process, I had focussed on stories my mum has shared with me before about very difficult, loud and sometimes aggressive patients. She also explained that more often than not, patients who don't need ambulance assistance still persist and call the ambulance service which is misusing the NHS' money. This initial thought process inspired me to create a character who would certainly draw attention to herself and cause a scene. We had to then close our eyes and imagine our character in a busy train station, this allowed us to think of specific details about our character, we also wrote down different facts, and thoughts about our characters included secrets, their age and their dislikes. This was personally helpful for me as it allowed me to explicitly develop my character and have some form of foundation for what my character would be like. I hot seated my character and made it clear that I was very demanding and linked this with my profession of being a landlady and expecting rent etc. I also revealed that I had a big 5-bedroom house yet lived alone, this gave the implication that I was unlovable or somewhat lonely, giving me more reason to be in A&E often, needing some form of attention. This exercise certainly gave me more context and subtext to my character and helped give me and underlying emotion and direction for the character throughout the scene. The exercise also helped inspire me further as we were told to create a monologue discussing an issue that will be raised within the scene and with our partners were told to perform an improvised scene of how our performance will roughly be staged. I created a monologue about whether or not I should complain about the A&E service, it was set at 3am in the morning, which emphasised how Samantha had nothing else to think about and how lonely and bored she was. For the audience, this monologue generated slight sympathy for Samantha, as it shows how she had no one to talk to, however, it also creates partial hatred towards Samantha as she was just trying to cause a scene because she had nothing better to do. From all these exercises I explored I realised that my character would be very comical and make a mockery out of the timid, vulnerable nurse. This comical timing and mockery had to be embedded within the script which was a task that me and Laura focused on explicitly when script writing.

To begin the development process on the theme of the script for the piece, me and Laura both went off and found news articles which backed up our initial idea of the misuse and abuse of the NHS. One of the articles we found was extremely interesting as it discussed the costs of frequent 999 callers, 'Ambulance “frequent fliers” who make several 999 calls a year are costing the NHS in England millions of pounds'(James Meikle: Frequent 999 callers cost NHS millions of pounds a year, The Guardian Online). This inspired us to include the fact that Samantha is a frequent A&E visitor, including lines within the script, like 'I called your ambulance crew AGAIN!!' And 'Oh, hello AGAIN Samantha'. This was useful within the actual performance as it allowed them to see that Samantha WAS a frequent caller, which adhered to our title of our piece, 'Misuse and Abuse'. The overreaction of Samantha when she was refused to be seen by an ambulance was comical for the audience as not only was it causing a massive scene but it was also very true and real, based on what actually happens in A&E'S. Although the performance was very comical and making a mockery out of the NHS, I feel it also enhanced the real issues that take place, and highlighted the daily struggles of nurses working very long and tiring shifts. Overall, I feel the comical themes integrated with the serious issues that were raised within the performance, helped to deliver a strong and well thought out performance.












Bibliography

Meikle James, The Guardian Online Newspaper, Frequent 999 callers cost NHS millions of pounds a year – December 2015, Date accessed, 18/09/17. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/dec/25/frequent-999-callers-nhs-
england-ambulance-emergency