Final house

For the final pigs house Harry wanted to do a chant so that we can get the audience directly involved in the building of a house. We took the song ‘Brick by Brick’ by the Arctic Monkeys and changed the lyrics. The original song itself would be in no way suitable for younger children as it has adult themes. However we kept the second line of the song the same as it went ‘brick by brick’ we feel that this was suitable for the scene as the pig was building his house out of bricks. Also the chant is very simple and the children would pick up on instantly. Harry explained to the audience that every time he sings a line he is going to point to them and they need to shout the words ‘Brick by Brick’.

I’m gunna build my house

Brick by brick

Not for a mouse

Brick by brick

I’m gunna build it high

Brick by brick

Up to the sky

Brick by brick

I’m gunna build it strong

Brick by brick

What could go wrong?

Brick by brick

No straw no sticks

Brick by brick

Just load of bricks

Brick by brick

Now one for thing

Brick by brick

To add some bling

Brick by brick

This brick that’s pink

Brick by brick

What do you think?

research and overview of the play

After looking through my old book collection from when I was younger I found my old copy of Green Eggs and Ham. I believe that this book has a lot of techniques and ideas that we used or could have used. First of all, the phrase ‘I do not like green eggs and ham, I do not like them Sam I am’ I believe we can learn a lot from this. The phrase is repeated at the end of every page. This means that the children can learn what it is and even into the later years of my school life I can still remember that phrase. We used the repetition technique in our performance. Every time the Wolf came on stage he would bang on his chest and hum in a beat. At the very start of the play we told the children that this was the ‘noise of the Big Bad Wolf’ and that every time they see him they have to ‘BOO’ this worked perfectly as the children knew when to boo and they were always quite whenever we ask them to be. We took the audience interaction aspect of our play from pantomimes. The fact that pantomimes have been so successful and are regarded as one of the most popular forms of children’s entertainment was a big point for us. We wanted to include features from a pantomime into our performance. In every pantomime the narrator tells the audience to boo whenever the main villain comes onto the stage. We used this technique because we wanted the audience to be involved enough so that they would not get bored.

The audience itself consisted of the younger years of a primary school. This was perfect for the ideas and themes we used. We mostly focused on comedy that the audience would find funny. We used a lot of slapstick humour such as falling over and farting. We also used a lot of puns that the teachers would find funny. The younger children would not necessarily understand the puns that we used but we thought that because the teachers watched the performance as well we should have something for them to enjoy as well.

We also wanted to have a moral for the children so that it would be considered by the teachers to be a very suitable performance as it is teaching them good morals. The main moral was to forgive people if they say sorry. This was shown right at the end of the play when the big bad wolf came to apologise and we invite him to have Christmas dinner with us. Danny best summed it up when he invited in the wolf by stating that Christmas time is a time for giving and love. Another moral we had in the play was to say sorry when you have done something wrong. Throughout the play the Big Bad Wolf would lie, call the pigs names and break their thing ( their houses) however after he goes into the brick house and the three pigs dress up as the wolfs mother. We tell the wolf he has been very ‘naughty for blowing down the pigs houses’ however we also gave him a hug. This shows the children that when someone is shouting it doesn’t mean that they don’t love you. It also showed the children that they shouldn’t misbehave and should treat everyone the way they would want to be treated.

character profile

Name: Snort

Nick name: Snozzer

Age: 8 years

Residence: House of bricks. He builds his own house but it was blown down by the Big Bad Wolf.

Occupation: Farmer. Ukulele player.

Skills/ personality: Can play ukulele. Not very smart but practical (build his own house but out of straw)

Eye colour: Blue

Hair colour: Light Brown.

Skin colour: pink

Clothes: Jeans, trainers, dress shirt and red braces

Characteristics: often talks extremely fast when trying to explain something that has happened (E.g., explaining the Wolf blew down his house) Short.

Intelligence: below average. Gullible.

Fears: The Big Bad Wolf. Living alone. Losing his Ukulele.

Likes: His older brothers. His mother. Fried bread.

Most cherished possession: Ukulele.

Family: Two older brothers and a mum.