[0:00]Hi everyone, welcome to Miss Adams Teachers English Language and Literature A-Level. In this video, we're going to be taking a look at When I Lived in Peru by Andrew Viner, which is part of the Edexcel Voices in Speech and Writing anthology.
[0:15]I'm going to take you through a couple of contextual points, we'll do a little focus on the genre, audience and purpose before looking at the text in detail, focusing on how to describe the character's voice and using some terminology to help with our analysis. So let's get started.
[0:33]Okay, so our radio drama When I lived in Peru is about a chap called Martin, uh who is made redundant from his job by his boss Julian, only to go home and find out that his partner Claire has actually received a promotion, ironically because of a number of redundancies that have been made. Um, it was written in 2014 by the British playwright Andrew Viner. Uh he's very, very successful, Emmy nominated, he's written articles, he's written a book, uh he's written for television, particularly children's television, um, a very kind of popular writer for CBBC. And he does other radio drama style pieces as well. In fact, he has written some of the comedy sketches for that Mitchell and Web sound, which is the the radio version of that Mitchell and Web look. So that gives you a bit of an indication of the kind of writer he is and perhaps prepares you for some of the humor in this extract. Now, it's very straightforward this. It is a radio drama, so therefore the genre is a script. Um and it's got um sort of two different audiences, just like with the King's speech. So you've got the initial audience, which is of course the performers, and then you've got the broader audience, which is for BBC Radio 4 listeners, which is where it was, um, played. Um and generally, people that are interested in radio dramas, um will tune in, um for it. You've got obviously fans of comedy, fans of Andrew Viner himself and his type of comedy. And the purpose is really straightforward, it's to entertain. Of course, it is. Um, so when we're thinking about voice, um before we start looking at different sections of the text, you've got to remember that we're looking at three different characters. So you're going to be looking at the way that each character's voice is constructed, um dependent on the context of the situation. So just make sure that, um, you're very clear about which character you're talking about. Okay, so let's look at the opening of this particular scene. Um, so you'll notice that, um, this extract comes in in, uh, this scene 21, so there actually have been a number of scenes beforehand. So it's in media res in terms of the scene, but obviously had you been listening to the radio drama, you would have had a build up to this moment. Um, and something quite typical of this particular piece is to get these very, very short, um, monologues, um and then obviously we've got descriptions of the sound effects. So abiding and conforming to conventions of the form. So, if we have a little look at this very, um, early opening in scene 21 or in our extract. I guess the differences between us could be highlighted by our respective attitudes to our careers. So immediately there is a definitely a voice established there. There's a little hint of a kind of irony and self-deprecation, and you've got a strange blend between informal and formal because you've got this little hedge in the the verb, I guess. Um, that's quite ambiguous, isn't it? I guess the differences between us. So that's nicely informal, um and you get a real sense of direct address to the the listeners, sorry, at home. But that's juxtaposed with quite formal language, respective attitudes towards our careers. And that kind of sets up the tone for this little piece of comedy, um that kind of mix of formal and informal. You also have a slight sense of mystery in that we've got the object pronoun um us here, which is slightly ambiguous in terms of, you know, who is he talking about? But what this actually does, this tiny little monologue is it frames the rest of this extract, um and kind of builds to the moment at the very end of the extract. So try and look at them in in the context of each other. Okay. Uh it also sets the tone and the topic. We know that this is going to be one about careers and two, we're going to have uh two very different journeys or different pathways. Um, so as I said before, conventions of the form being um, met here and also it's all very specific to an office uh location. Okay. So, let's start. We now are being introduced to a second character, who is Julian. Now Julian is described as older and avuncular. Um avuncular means uh sort of kind and friendly, but um quite specifically in relation to people who are younger, um than them. So you kind of get a sense of the power dynamic here. Um, we've got power dynamics being established also uh through this interrogative. You wanted to see me, Julian, uh it's very clear that Martin is there because he has been sent for. Um but Julian abides by politeness principles here, he tries to make uh Martin feel comfortable. Ah, yes, come in, Martin. Have a seat. But again that's about creating um comfort. So this fits in quite well with the um adjective avuncular there and it does have an impact on on his voice. Because you've got to remember that that is an instruction to the actor to play it kind, you know. So you've got to remember that the stage directions do contribute to the voice. Okay. So now we start to get a little bit of a shift where we get um a little bit more of the difficulties um that we're building up to with the redundancy. So there's a little bit more conflict there and we might argue there's a little bit of challenge. Um so if it's about those bugs, we'll have a new version out next week. So notice that we've got some subject specific lexis here, it sounds like it's to do with computer systems. We've got a conditional subordinator, which is in some ways pointing to the possibility that there are other problems that it could be. And Martin is just picking out on one. Um, Julian shifts and it becomes a lot more transactional in function here. Um but there's again, there's quite a lot of hedging as you're probably aware. So, he's he's hedging here again and he's trying to downplay the surprise element. Um there's been a downturn here at FSR, like a lot of companies, to cut costs, we're outsourcing our IT department overseas in our case to Tanzania. So note, we've got um as well as subject specific lexis, it's all very corporate, uh it's quite euphemistic as well. Um but you've got these little moments, all of these um frontal adverbial here and this um subordinate clause, as you're probably aware and like a lot of companies. It's all about establishing that this shouldn't be a shock, that this is commonplace, um across lots of companies and people have awareness. And so, we've got to kind of question Martin's response, oh, I'm kind of settled here in London. Some people see that as just a misunderstanding, but I think, bearing in mind the way that Martin talks about his career, that he knows exactly what he's saying here. He's poking a little bit of fun, uh sort of deliberately misunderstanding, uh what Julian is said. Now, obviously, this is a face threatening act whether meant to with malice or not is redundant. Oh, sorry, punning. Um because he is being made redundant. You've got um Martin's rhetorical question, note the way that he repeats um the word here from redundant here to redundant there. Um and again, Julian is sort of trying to move him on to perhaps the more positive um outcomes by reminding him of how long he's been there, so, you know, he's thinking about um like what redundancy package, um that he's going to get. Slightly informal in the tag question there, so it's trying to keep it friendly despite the difficult conversation taking place. So the transactional voice continues here with Julian. Um, so that means your payoff would be around 30,000 pounds. A lot of people view this kind of situation as an opportunity. So note the indefinite determiner here. Um again, reminding us that this is not just something happening to Martin, um but is very commonplace. And we've got some euphemistic language with this kind of situation as well as being hedged again, of course, to just try and make it a little less threatening, a little less difficult. Um, a lot of people view this as an opportunity. And then you get this little hyphen here, yeah, uh this little pause, a little moment to think things through. To reassess their lives, perhaps retrain to do something they really love. You could argue that the tone here is a little bit condescending, again, whether meant to or not. But the suggestion is perhaps that Martin needs to reassess his life, perhaps. Um, Martin uses a declarative here. Uh, note the informality again with a frontal coordinate conjunction, but it is also about demonstrating the other side of the argument. So he is sort of challenging the redundancy, but I loved my job. A little bit of humor here. At your last appraisal, you said you found it, "Dull and repetitive" and that you felt "unstretched and lacking any kind of challenge." So really good appraisal speak here. Um, but the the humor comes from the declarative because obviously that's all very kind of, it's very, very negative in tone. Martin, that's what I loved. Again, that repetition of loved and loved there. So again, you're getting the indication that he is sort of making fun ever so slightly of the situation, which fits in to what he said at the very beginning about having a kind of different attitude to Claire about their career. We get another little break, um, another very short monologue, um from Martin and the function of this is to almost sort of reiterate, um, the disaster, um of his situation to juxtapose with Claire's. We've got some informal language again, we've got the idiom, that was my career down the toilet, um, notice your connective, your frontal connective here, so that was my career down the toilet. Whereas yours, so ellipticle phrasing here and actually an ellipsis. So creates a little bit of drama and we know that the scene is going to therefore transition into Claire's section. And with that, you get a totally different tone of voice. And it's not just the voices of the characters, it's all of the sound effects. So, uh the fact that we have a champagne cork popping and two glasses poured, so definitely a shift in tone moving to celebration. And that is then emphasized through Martin's exclamative minor sentence, congratulations. It's really important here that we recognize that that celebratory tone is genuine, you do not get a sense of bitterness, um from Martin. Even when the subject matter creates more and more irony. So Claire says, it's just an acting promotion while they reorganize after the redundancies. Notice the way that she's downplaying her success here with this adverb, it's just an acting promotion. Um, now that's not because she knows that he has been made redundant at this point, this is actually just a natural part of her personality, we can assume, to sort of downplay her success. London said they'd wait for me, and because of the extra projects, I'll get a raise as soon as I get there. So it's not just the new job, notice the way that Claire is valued by her company. The fact that they're going to wait for her and they're going to pay her more money. Um, so it's in stark contrast, of course, to Martin's situation. And the fact is, is that the irony here comes from the fact that Claire's success is coming from the fact that a load of people have been made redundant. Martin responds with humor. Again, we've got another declarative, that's brilliant news. Again, there's a real sense that he feels genuinely happy for her. Um, but then, um, there is sort of more discussion of their relationship here. It's a lovely little moment, you know, but what about the stubble and drool every morning? So this is obviously like a little in joke between them about him not shaving, drooling like in his sleep. So he's using quite sort of traditionally negative things to kind of poke fun of it, poke fun at himself. It's all quite self-deprecating. Um, Claire continues to sort of hedge here a little bit. Um, you know, we've got till then, I guess we'll just have to make the most of these weekends. So there's quite a sort of happy tone here. And of course, and we've got the stage directions of them kissing. Um and then we've got a topic shift. Anyway, what was your work news? And again, irony heightened. We've got dramatic irony, of course, here as well because Claire doesn't know that he's been made redundant, we do. And Martin uses a filler. Oh, so you get the sort of sense of inviting his time a little bit and again that little ellipsis. Nothing really. So nice, vague, ambiguous language, and then we get a tiny but important topic loop because he says, cheers, and the glasses chink. So he downplays his own and brings it back to her success. So, what I mentioned before about the framing, it comes back to that opening monologue where he says, I guess the differences are, you know, you know, respective attitudes to our attitudes to our respective careers. And it demonstrates that it's come full circle. That's it from me. It's nice, easy one that one, I think. Um, give me a shout if you've got any questions, just pop them in the comments and I will come back to you. Okay, thank you so much again. Happy revising.
