Introduction:
.Talking Heads were a tv series written by Alan Bennet
.Broader audience, didn’t have to be cultural
.wrote about ordinary, marginalised people, not centre of society.
.felt like an outsider, he was gay
.written to show people who were lost in society should be recognized
.exploring the methods in which AB presents IR to the audience

Dramatic Monologue: advantages: .Develop close bond with IR
.open up to her audience
.she can only talk to you, you can only listen to her
.express how she truly feels, opinions, feeling and thoughts
.seek what she really think, instead of what she tells other people
Disadvantages:
.never know if IR is being honest, telling the truth
.only her speaking, can’t listen to other peoples view points
.cant question her
.not a balanced view point
.Over powering, mind controlling

Facts on IR character scn 1:
.opening paragraph, AB doesn’t reveal much
.shared few facts, facts he does share are basic doesn’t give much information
.mother dead, lives alone
.cousin in Canada, apparently only relative
.suggests lonely, learnt to be independent
.likes to write frequent letters
.recently attended funeral of someone she doesn’t even know correct name of
.cant of known recently decease lady
.’At least it’s an outing’
.suggests doesn’t have anything better to do, didn’t have close relationship with lady
.neighbours just moves in, observes street occasionally
.’Don’t look very promising, kiddy looks filthy’
Hints she is judgmental, immediately assumes they aren’t promising
.well spoken ‘mover over’
.few facts, gather she is lonely, judgmental, self assured, bored, nothing to do with life

Positive and Negative Characteristics:
.opening paragraph, IR reveals number of Pos and Neg characteristics
.what she says, how she says it
POS:
.doesn’t use plain, simple, boring words
.uses big well spoken words such as moreover and correspondence
.public spirited, her duty to write letter, what she think and feels
.See this when she talks about the funeral ’I can’t say the service was…wrote crematorium’
.‘The least I could do was write’
.another pos characteristic IR self confident and self aware to a degree
.see this when cause she uses ‘I’ never ‘we’
.Wants people to agree with her
.hoped to present herself in a positive manor/view
.wants people to like her, agree with her feelings and opinions
NEG:
.Attention seeker, know this always writing letters of complaint
.always expects a letter back
.judgemental-talks about her new neighbours not looking promising
.Says it before she has even spoken to them or got the chance to know them
.presents herself as abit snobby, over confident and interfering
.also boring(first paragraph) nothing to do, writing letters, attending funeral

Un Reliable narrator:
.Having introduced IR in section 2 and learning about her sections 1
. begin to realise she is an un reliable narrator
.Section 2 AB confirms our suspicions
.distrust IR view point/opinions
.realise she is strange and sees the world different
.spin off of writing a dramatic mono, can tweek her chara to make her strange and untrustworthy
.making the audience think harder, trying to find the truth in what she says
.IR writes frequent pointless letters, addressing to unimportant things
.total of 5 letters- opticians, the council, Westminster city council twice and even the queen of England
.opticians mailed her saying ’that their records indicate that its 2 years since they supplied her with new glasses’
.wrote back thanking them for letting her know and ‘it was considerate of them to have kept her in mind’
.however, when she doesn’t receive letters back she thinks of as being ‘typical’
.actions confirm IR isn’t normal
.talks about a pen as being ‘a real friend’
.this alone proves she is strange, sad and incred lonely
.as the pen has helped her to write all those letters, key to be involved in the outside world
.talks about new neighbours that moved in
.’Thin little thing, bruise on its arm’
Start to wonder if IR has spotted a problem with the child
.Not sure if you can trust her as she is an unreliable narrator

Dramaitc Irony:
.thoughtout talking heads.AB uses the effect/technique or dram irony
.means the audience actually know more then the character themselves
.when character speaks, we know they are mis informed, mis led or wrong
.in lady of letter he uses dramatic irony when IR quotes ‘prison they have it easy..televison…crime?’
.audience think of it as being another trivia
.when infact the irony is at the end of the play, IR herself actually ends up in prison
.prison is meant to be a punishment, for IR it resolves to a social acceptance
.feels she has purpose in life, gains friends, hobbies
.its as if she felt imprisoned all her life and prison is the best thing that ever happened
.‘..first taste of freedom iv had in years’
.back at home, in reality, she didn’t feel excepted, was enclosed from the real world
.being at home was more of a prison then prison itself
. in prison she gained ‘bridget and shirley’ friends who she can give advise to instead of interfere
.meant to be punishment became a ‘holiday camp’ for IR which is ironic

Humour:
.continuously through L o L, AB uses humour thoughtout the play
.example being when the policeman came round to have a word with IR about her obsessive, disruptive letter writing
.asks her if she has been writing letter, she denies and get defensive
.when argument isn’t won she quotes ‘Don’t love me. You’d better..superintendant’
.hilarious cause she has just been warned and told off that if she writes another letter she will be fined
.yet straight away she intends to write a letter to the police department
Although in some cases we laugh at situations which are actually quite painful
.the balance that AB uses has to be careful
.sad story about child that dies of leukaemia and sad lonely woman who gets the wrong idea and mistake the child as being abused
.humour is used throughout talking heads to allow us to cope with the sad events that have been presented
.but it can be taken in a pos manor
.AB has made IR have a good sense of humour, means laugh with not at her
.amusing incident in play when IR bought some sausages and found a ‘big black hair in the sausage’
.ofc she writes a letter of complaint and stuck the hair to the letter with an arrow telling them that ‘this is the hair’
.funny for audience cause it creates a amusing visual image
.highly amusing cause its obvious for IR to do something like that
.After ‘I don’t want to be inundating with sausage’
.audience finds funny cause IR doesn’t realise this could be seen as a sexual innuendo, tiny details give us reason to laugh

Withholding information:
.in AB play, L o L, there are occasions that we don’t get inform,left confused and rather puzzled
.however, later down the line we gather together the inform learned and we are taken by surprise
.example, the playwright finally lets out that IR does in fact have a mental problem
.in a sections she quotes ‘I said I was getting upset, like be4’
.then the doctor quoted ‘I’ll give you something to take.. these tablets will help you take a balanced view’
.suggests she has been having problems with her emotions
.finally tells us about her problem, feel let down and hurt by her
.cause you thought you has a close intimate bond with her when really she hasn’t been honest with you
.IR doesn’t reveal inform cause its almost like she was embarrassed by her problem
.she dint wanna be honest with herself, let alone her audience
.IR makes out her problem isn’t serious when deep down she knows its quite a serious issue
.she quotes ‘I shant bother with it. Infact I put it down the toilet’
.its not cause the tablets aren’t working, its cause she dunt want to take them and face she is actually really ill
.if AB told us that IR had a problem at the start, would make the play boring and less discovery
.cause he gave audience puzzle to figure out it meant audience had to work slightly harder themselves to find thing out
.means it has a surprise element when he finally reveals all
.by doing this it makes the play exciting and un expected

Universal appeal:
.AB also uses the technique of universal appeal
.by using this technique it makes IR seem much saner then she actually is and things she says we believe to be true and we cant help but agree with her.
.example where she says ‘if you get the heroine saying, I don’t suppose I shall ever be happy’,’then you can bank on it thaere happiness just round the corner. That’s the rule in novels’
.also says ‘where as in life you can say you’re never going to be happy and you never are happy’
.talks about fairy tales of the obvious happening and reality that if you’re unhappy, you will stay unhappy
.amongst all her rambling, IR does actually talk abit of truth and sense
.cant dismiss everything IR says
.forces the audience to make some common ground with IR, its an interesting contradictory for the audience

Social Commentator:
.AB has chosen to present IR as a social Commentator
.she has many concerns, judgements and opinions
.mains ones being child abuse, public utilities, rise in crime, hygiene, social workers and immigration(i.e the Asians)
.some comments are valid such as the things she picks up on to do with her suspicions of child abuse
.some are racist and prejudice a .pre judge man opposite with tattoos on his arm and decides there is something not right about him
.cause he has tattoos
.forces audience to have a contradictory response to what she says
. IR does however comment truthfully and has realised that standards have dropped.
.Talks about the female social worker she quotes ‘a hole in her tights as big as a 50p piece’
.if your professional worker then you should be dressed smartly
.do agree with IR in some cases
.even though sometimes audience does feel uncomfortable with some of the things IR says.
.example she says ’he has a tattoo anyway’
.makes audience feel slightly on edge as she is being prejudice and we feel a little misinformed
.good cause in some sense it makes everything more realistic cause it’s a real situation IR is criticizing
.Wants audience to feel slightly concerned about the events in out modern day society and how standards have dropped
.that we do need to consider big issues

Shock tactics:
.AB also uses shock tactics.
.during the play IR is constantly mentioning things about ‘The kiddy’
.quotes from section 1,2,5,6
.we begin to become worries and concerned about the child
.as she repeats through the play ‘the kiddy’ it creates a sense of alarm and we begin to suspect thing aren’t right or something wrong
.gather a build up of inform that IR is always pointing out to us..
.such as crying, bruises, tattoos, no job, always out, no fresh air, never see kiddy
.eventually policeman comes round
.IR had written a letter of complain about this
.she quotes ‘I can’t keep the peace…suffering’
.officer later quotes ‘the kiddy was in hospital in Bradford..thats where the kiddy died’
.IR still trying to prove herself and what she sees and hear to be right says ‘what of? Neglect?’
Officer then corrects her and says ‘no. leukaemia.’, then there is a pause.
.Massive shock horror as IR was mistaken
.cause child wasn’t being abused/neglected, it was going to hospital battling leukaemia where it sadly dies
.IR was so sure she was right and she wouldn’t give up and except she was mistaken
.really all she was trying to do was help and stand up for what she though was happening
.AB shock audience as they didn’t expect it and the audience also believes and is concerned by what IR is witnessing
.Audience to miss judge what happened so its incredibly emotional

Change:
.In L o L IR completes the play by being sent to prison
.meant to be a punishment turned out to be a better place for IR
.cause she feels ‘free’
.you feel happy for her cause she gains friends,gets hobbies and she feels a lot happier and its up lifting
.start of play you feel sorry for her
.its sad that her life seemed so empty and meaningless, going prison in the end IR changed to be a happier person
.Makes you feel happy cause IR can finially socialize with others and she feels excepted in life
.sums up change is possible in anyone and there is always a spark of happiness waiting eventually
.hope can change anything

Conclusion:
.in conclusion AB uses a wide range of techniques to describe IR
.Present her in a good way, others bad way, equal balance
.comes across as irritating, ignorant, critical, judgmental and interfering.
.lost in society, never satisfied
.during the play we learn she is mentally unstable
.audience actually feels bad for judging her without knowing all the facts