Comparing Blue Remembered Hills with High School Musical 2

In this essay I'm going to compare two total different plays that are set in a different period of time. I'm going to compare my scripted piece called â€Å"Blue Remembered Hills† written by Dennis Potter and set in the year of 1979 which I preformed for my drama exam and can be seen as a comedy and a tragedy play. The other play I'm going to compare it to is called â€Å"High School Musical 2† directed by Kenny Ortega and set in the year 2007 and can be seen as a comedy and romantic. The play â€Å"Blue Remembered Hills† is about a group of seven year olds playing in the Forest of Dean during a summer afternoon called ‘Willie' , ‘Peter', ‘John', ‘Raymond', ‘Angela', ‘Audrey' and ‘Donald' whilst parts of the ‘Second World War' were happening. This play shows how victimisation and stereotypical views occur even in young children, and ends abruptly when the character of ‘Donald' is burned to death due to an outcome of the other children's actions. However, the most striking feature of this play is that though the characters were young children they were played by adult actors and actresses. The play starts and the first character we are introduced to is Willie eating an apple and pretending to be a pilot a war plane, when pretends he's parachuting from a tree. Once done after arguing over an apple, in which a way Peter acts how a hard bully should be, they gradually spot a squirrel and chase it. Meanwhile in a nearby farm we are introduced to Donald who is playing with Angela and Audrey. We notice and learn how vulnerable Donald is as she suffers some teasing from Audrey and Angela after their fantasy game of mummies and daddies. I'm going to compare this with â€Å"High School Musical 2† which is about a group of teenagers called ‘Troy', ‘Gabriella', ‘Sharpay', ‘Ryan', ‘Chad' and ‘Taylor' who attend East High Wildcats as they think about their plans over summer break from school. Sharpay and Ryan (who are brother and sister) are planning as usual to spend their summer vacation holiday at their families ‘Lava Springs Country Club'. Whilst Troy tried to get a job and gets most of the East High students employed at the country club. Only for Sharpay being the mean girl she is, trying to get the manager ‘Mr. Fulton' to fire them. Throughout the play we begin to see songs being sang from the students at East High, including ‘What Time is it', ‘Everyday' and ‘All for One' which is the last song we hear. With both plays being set from a total different time period, these plays are completely different along with the characters. Sharpay can be compared to Angela who likes to think she is in charge of everything and everyone. They both think of themselves as if they are the â€Å"top dogs† around their friends and like to control people and what says must definitely go. Although the character Gabriella is some sort of a laid back girl who is in between Troy and Sharpay, with Sharpay trying to take Troy off her and can be similar to Audrey from ‘Blue Remembered Hills ‘. But Gabriella and Sharpay are not friends and never really talk to each other unlike Audrey and Angela. ‘Blue Remembered Hills' and ‘High School Musical 2' are not alike in anyway, as their are songs being sung by the characters and there is nothing like that in ‘Blue Remembered Hills'. The times these plays were aired were very different in addition to the society. High School Musical 2†² with it being American were long out of the war and now that America is suppose to be one of the richest countries in the world, there were no great depression, everyone was wealthy and that America had everything going for itself. But as we look at ‘Blue Remembered Hills' it's a lot different. As this was set in England with children living in the English country-open-side who were evacuees from the ‘Second World War' so times were hard when living at this current time period. There were shortage of money income of jobs; children were ‘dragged' up instead of being brought up the correct way only wearing nothing but dirty and stinky rags. Also another problems was shortage of money so young children were unable to have fun with toys etc. Young children had to find environment child-friendly things to make with such as twigs for pretend guns. Although, with the amount of soldiers were getting injured from the war, healthcare at this current time was quite minimal, due to government spending the money to help the wounded and injured from the war. But in the time ‘High School Musical 2' was set, just one year ago, healthcare was fantastic for every American citizens and provided to comfort the patients life-style whilst in hospital. The story about ‘High School Musical 2' is all about a group of teenagers who go off to do summer jobs at Sharpay's & Ryan's country club and Troy forget he used to be whilst his girlfriend, Gabriella and best friend, Chad and others out of the group said he's changed and not the lad he used to be. But by the end of the play, it seems Troy has realised where is priorities are laid and becomes him old self with all the group coming together as one, with the most unexpected character, Sharpay, by Troy taking Sharpay's hand whilst doing a sound called ‘Everyday' and taking her up on stage with the rest of the East High and you could see there were a connection of love and friendship. However, there are a lot of songs used throughout the story with significant characters almost singing a song that shows their feelings and emotions. Compared to ‘Blue Remembered Hills' where that this is all about a group of kids, once again that can be compared with ‘High School Musical 2', but in this case they are older actors playing young youth children during the near-end ‘Second World War'. But by the end of the play â€Å"the killing of the squirrel from Angela and Audrey baiting of the character of Donald have just been rehearsals for a much more horrific persecution at the end of the play†. Donald Duck eventually dies. So ‘Blue Remembered Hills' compared to ‘High School Musical 2' have both finished in a completely different way. As ‘Blue Remembered Hills' never ended in the way with love and friendship and songs unlike ‘High School Musical 2'. ‘High School Musical 2†² is indeed a musical performance, in some sense it can be seen as a comedy and romantic as stated before. The characters have a tendency to lose themselves and become someone they're not. But when we look at' Blue Remembered Hills' this is very different due to the fact of the timing when the ‘Second World War' took place and the characters aren't teenagers, their children. Also ‘High School Musical 2' was originally written for Disney, but because it was such a franchise it was turned into a play, as ‘Blue Remembered Hills' was just written for television. These both plays are very diverse and dissimilar from each other.