'Road' - Week 2

In this week of Road we started to block the play. I'm excited to see what 'Road' will develop into.

While the blocking was happening I started to think bout my character Bisto. I looked firstly at what his appearance would be like and personality. I started to think that Bisto would look a lot like John Travolta from Grease. This appearance firstly came to mind as I knew that back in the 80s this look was very popular with John Travolta being a hit icon. I also thought about my characters personality and James Buckley from The Inbetweeners, Buckley plays a character called Jay Cartwright who is a loud mouth teen who is fuelled by Sex and vulgar language much like that of Bisto.




I then went on to ask question about Bisto's first scene.

V-Sign

The first scene my character is in is on page 31 and the stage directions read as so: "Bisto, the pub DJ, enters with a pack of leaflets. (On them is something like 'Bisto and his Beatoven Disco. Tonight at the Millstone Pub'.) He throws these out to the audience as he speaks. He wears a hat with two stuffed fingers on top in the V- Sign."

Who is Present in this scene?

No other characters, Bisto and Audience.

When is it happening?

'Road' is set at night however this scene I think is set around 5pm as he is handing out leaflets for the disco later on starting at 8pm. 

How does he behave?

Bisto behaves like he is the bee knees, he thinks he's really cool, but in reality apart from the Road he is an outcast. He acts very energetic as he thinks this is the way to attract people to his Disco. He may even flirt with some of the girls to attract them, as he thinks he is gods gift to all women.

What was the scene before and after?

My scene needs to be really energetic as the scenes before and after are really sad about a couple not eating. It will be difficult for me to get the energy levels of the audience high again but I'm ready for a challenge.

Where is the scene happening?

Outdoors, he doesn't have any boundaries to approach someone. Bisto is very annoying, which makes him unpopular.

What might happen next?

I think that Bisto may get punched considering he may flirt with someone's wife or girlfriend and because he is annoying.

Rehearsals

I did my long scene for the first time in this rehearsal, I felt it went really well, as I got comments like 'I was born for this Role', this was followed up with no critical comments on how to improve, this gave me a major confidence boost. I felt really good about myself but I would have liked some critic so I can make this character the best of my ability. Hannah gave the comment that this character is a lot like Peter Kay, Kay is a comedian who is very cheesy like Bisto and often uses foul language. The accents are also the same and I will use Peter Kay as an influence when looking at accents for Road. 

1980s music and before

Michael Jackson

Road is set in the 1980s and my character Bisto is the DJ of the local pub on the Road. Bisto loves music. I thought I'd research more into this era of Music to help with my character development and also for my own interest. The 1980s started to produce songs from the pop genre, Disco was also very popular in this era. In the 80s artists like Michael Jackson had a huge influence on music with songs such as Billie Jean and Thriller, the album thriller was so monumental that t won a record breaking 8 Grammy awards, including the award best album of the year. Other artists such as Donna Summer had a huge impact on the 1980s and before, Summer was known as the 'Queen of Disco' because of her contribution to the art. In the 1950s 60s and 70s, Elvis was a massive sensation. He was know as 'The King of Rock n' Roll' and rightfully so. Elvis' charisma and persona made him so a likeable and relateable person to the youth of that generation. Elvis was disliked very much by the parents and elderly of that generation, saying how Elvis was too sexual. Many cameras that filmed Elvis' tours would only film Elvis above the waist because of his sexual nature. I think Elvis is a massive inspiration to the character Bisto. This is shown as Bisto is very sexual like Elvis was. The 'King' died in 1977, some years before Road was set, I think this had a huge impact on Bisto, because Elvis was such an inspiration to him. Bisto was also upset as he never got to see 'The King' live as he only came to the UK once and that was to stop off in Scotland. Bisto always plays Elvis as a way to remember his music and to remember the great time he had growing up to this wonderful music. 

Elvis Presley  'The King of Rock n' Roll'

This week of Road has been good for me as I got to delve into my character and start to piece together how I see him.