Bill Naughton uses many themes in the play.
He uses a family relationship through out the play. It is interesting to see how the whole family revolves around Rafe, and how they have to think before saying or doing certain things around him. It is amazing to read how Rafe treats his children like they are little kids even though they are all over eighteen. In the time when the play was written it was generally the women's job to take control of the housekeeping, but Rafe seemed to take control over the housekeeping and he would not let Daisy have more than a certain amount of money each week.He also checked the books every week to check how she had done.
At the end of the play the family decide to stick together, even though they have had differences in the past, they decide to put it all behind them and start again. A modern audience would react differently to Rafe's behaviour than a 1960's audience would. A modern audience today would find Rafe quite a strange person. He says words, which people now a day do not say.
One example of this is that he calls Daisy "Mother" even though they are a married couple, which is very strange.He also uses strange words that a number of people in the modern day would not understand like "Nay, bonny and piquant". A modern audience would react differently to Rafe because of the way he treats his children as well. He treats his eighteen-year-old children like they are twelve or thirteen. He does not trust any of them in the slightest.
He also expects them to pay housekeeping money each week from their weekly pay. I think all of the characters are very different than how people act in the modern day. The children are all very different; Hilda is a young girl who I don't think has a care in the world.In the play she becomes pregnant and the issue with the herring is because of this. Harold and Wilfred are quite similar in the play. They are both the likely lads who both always want to say something witty and funny.
Harold acts like he is really tough and talks about Rafe and how he is not scared of him, but whenever Rafe is near he always acts sheepish and careful around him. An example of this is that when Rafe is not in the house Harold will have a cigarette, but when Rafe comes home he tries to get the smell of the cigarette away so Rafe does not know he has been smoking.Florence is the most mature out of all of the children. She is wise beyond her years and she tries to keep every body happy and does not want to take sides while the family argues.
In the play Florence is in a relationship with Arthur. When the other children all decide to leave home she too runs away and moves in with Arthur. This is against Rafe who tries to talk her out of moving out. Hilda and Wilfred are two outdated names. There are not many children who would have the names Hilda or Wilfred.
Rafe and Daisy in a way are two completely different people.Daisy tries so hard to keep Rafe happy. She even persists on fiddling with the house keeping books to make sure he can trust her. Daisy is an unselfish house wife. She thinks about the rest of the family and how they feel before herself. All of the jobs she does, she does them to very high standards.
Rafe is a very bold man, with hard mannerisms. He tends to show no emotions. He is a religious man and he tries to get the rest of the family to get into religion. He likes to try and get the family to sing together on a night while he plays the piano.He has a couple of weekly traditions.
One of these is that every Friday night the family eats herring. I would direct the teatime scene in a similar way to that of which Bill Naughton has directed it. I would have a lot of tension building up from the moment Betsy Jane comes into the house to lend five pound from Daisy. I think this is a clever way for the teatime scene to start as it gives the audience an impression of the kind of woman Daisy is. It shows that she is a kind, caring person who is always trying to help her friends out.
I would have the other members of the family being really careful with what they say and how they act around Rafe, when Harold gives Rafe a pound less than he should give him I would have Harold looking very upset and say, "Oh sorry Dad erm, her you go. I thought I had counted it properly. " Rafe would then give a look of disgust and would put the money in the money tin. When the family all go to the table to eat their herring, I would have Hilda sit aside and she would be looking at the audience worried. I would then have Rafe ask her to come and sit at the table.
She would then look at him and tell him she does not want to eat the herring. At this Rafe would give Hilda a look of disgust. Hilda would turn to look at the audience again. I would then have Daisy ask Hilda if she would like an egg.
I would have Daisy ask her and not Hilda ask Daisy so Hilda does not feel as guilty for not eating her herring. I would have Rafe then stand up and shout at Hilda for not eating her herring.Hilda would then look as if she was going to cry, but still look stubborn. I would have her stand up getting ready to leave the table and Rafe shout, "Sit down.
I think this would give the audience the impression that Rafe was very angry with Hilda for not wanting to eat the herring. The audience at this point would be sat on the edge of their seats waiting and wondering what was going to happen next. When Rafe tells the family about the Hunger Marchers I would have Harold and Wilfred keep exchanging glances and laughing under their breaths to each other and doing daft things. I think the audience would find this quite funny because they would get the impression that Harold and Wilfred were not taking what Rafe was saying seriously.
This would appeal to the 1960's audience as well as a modern day audience. In a way it would show a rebellious side to Harold and Wilfred. When Rafe leaves and tells Daisy to put the herring on the side and not to feed Hilda anything until she eats the herring I would have the rest of the family look shocked, and have Hilda not moving sat on her chair staring out to the audience. When Rafe leaves, I would have Harold stand up straight faced then say something sarcastic to Hilda about Rafe like he does in Naughton's version.
The family should then have a little argument about the herring. I would have Hilda and Harold make the bet that she won't eat the herring and Wilfred sat laughing and Florence looking worried. When the parcel arrives, I would have the children and Daisy rush to see what it was. When they find out it is the coat they will all look very shocked when they see how much it cost Rafe.
I think that the characters should all be sat around the dinner table. I think that Rafe should be sat by himself at the head of the table because his family treat him as though he is better than all of them.I think that Daisy should be sat closest to Rafe, but she should be sat near the kitchen in case she has to get anything from there. I also think that Harold and Wilfred should be sat opposite each other and through out the scene they should keep making sly glances and laughing together and each trying to do something to make the other one laugh. I think that Hilda should start the scene sat away from the dinner table because this shows she does not want to eat the herring. Then Florence should sit in the final seat at the table.
I think that when Hilda starts to argue with Rafe, Rafe should stand up and walk around the table looking daunting. Hilda should sit staring into the audience not looking bothered about how annoyed and angry Rafe is. The rest of the family would go quiet and stop eating their tea for a minute. Harold and Wilfred would sit giving each other sly looks. The family would all be sat so the audience could see each one of them and they can see the facial expressions as well. I think this would make it easier for the audience to understand what is going on through out the scene.
The other family members react to Rafe very oddly.The other members of the family generally are nervous about what Rafe is going to say or do. When Harold gives him a pound less than he should give him for his weekly rent money, the rest of the family would be nervous about what Rafe was going to do. An old audience would be upset because they thought Harold had deliberately tried to get a pound off his dad, the modern day audience would not really be that bothered about this as it was only a pound. When Hilda tries to make herself an egg instead of having to eat the herring Rafe says, "Hold on a minute Mother, is there something wrong with your herring Hilda? At this point the rest of the family would again be nervous about what Rafe was going to do or say to Hilda.
Through out the scene the rest of the family members act as if they are scared of Rafe, and they do not want to do anything that might upset him in any way. Bill Naughton was the first author to write using, "Kitchen Sink Language. " This meant he was the first author to use language that was not very posh. He also is very original with the fact that he used a working class setting.
This was very good because it gave the idea over to the audience more.This idea would have appealed to an older audience and also still appeals to a modern day audience. I think this was a very clever idea for Bill Naughton, even though at the time when he wrote the play, I am sure he did not think it would still be popular in the 21st century. Before the family sit down for tea, a number of things happen that are important in the play. AT the start of the play we see Daisy fiddling the house keeping books. We later learn that the reason she did this was to keep Rafe happy.
Then Betsy Jane comes and asks if she can borrow five pounds so her TV does not get taken away.Unfortunately, Daisy cannot afford to lend Betsy Jane the money. Betsy Jane and Daisy end up having an argument and fall out. Luckily for Daisy, one of the children lends her the money to give to Betsy Jane. The two make up after this. Florence arrives home, and insists on giving her mum a hand in working out the housekeeping book.
She realises she is down on money and Daisy fiddles it saying the window cleaner had been. We learn that Hilda has been at a leaving party at her work. We find out she has drunk quite a lot of port wine. When Rafe arrives home, the atmosphere changes in the house.All of the conversations are revolved around him. It is amazing when reading the play to find out how much the rest of the family think of Rafe.
They do everything for him. When he gets home on a night the family have all of his things laid out for him. They take his coat and his workbag off him when he gets in the house and they have his slippers laid out ready for him to put on. There are a lot of things in the play that can be classed as old fashioned.
Rafe's attitude towards Daisy and his children are very old fashioned as in the modern day, husbands treat their wives with respect and they treat their children well.The way the children and Daisy treat Rafe is old fashioned as well. In the modern day families do not spend all their time waiting hand and foot for their dad, and if that does happen it is very rare. I also found that Rafe was a very old fashioned man all together.
I thought this in the way he dressed, in the way he spoke to other and also in the way that he treated others. The language used would appear old fashioned to a modern day audience, some examples of old-fashioned language are, "Nay, bonny and piquant. "The audience in 1960 would have reacted a lot differently through out the play than what the audience would act in the modern day. The 1960 audience would find a lot more of the play funny, and would have laughed at some of the "corny" jokes. They would have found Rafe to be a scary man and they would probably have been scared of him.
The modern day audience would more than likely think he was just a sad man who wanted to make himself feel big and strong by being unfair to people who would not saying anything back to him. Spring and Port Wine is a comedy.It was written as a comedy and the audience from the 1960s would have found the play very funny. The family itself are actually quite close.
The only bad thing was when Rafe said something that was not fair on one of the other family members. I personally feel as though the rest of the family love each other and Rafe, but when Rafe was horrible to Hilda about the herring, that was the final straw for the children in the family. They all found it very hard, but they thought it was the right thing to do with the children each moving out of the family house.The family sort it all out at the end of the play and the children all decided that the family was worth fighting for and they all decided to give it another go. Family life in the modern day is a lot different.
Dads are a lot more reasonable to both their children and their wife. A modern day dad would not try to force his child to eat something they did not want to eat. They would also be allowed to choose what they wanted to eat, as Rafe made it clear that his house was not a cafeteria and the children should eat what they are given.The detail given about the set of the play is very important for the reader. IF a reader was reading the play and had not seen the film then how Bill Naughton writes about the set is very good.
I think that when reading the play you feel as if you can see the set as Naughton gets the little details in. I think that Spring and Port Wine is a good play and I think it is an educational play as well, I think this because it gives the reader the ideas of how a 1960s family lived and how much different it is to how we live.
