‘No Idea’ could prove to be a challenging piece to use for an exam due to the fact that there is a lot of key information ‘missing’ which some people may not favor. In contrast, it may be an easy piece for some people to use if they favor this style. The same goes for ‘Ant’s Speech’ except in this case a lot of the information is filled in. Although both stimuli are different on first glance they also have several similarities contained within them, when of the most obvious ones is the theme of bullying. Although different forms of bullying for instance, in ‘No Idea’ the bullying in that poem is more than likely to be more verbal if not all verbal unlike in ‘Ant’s Speech’ which is more physical, although probably sparked by a verbal insult.
One of the similarities which we would normally pass up as it seems insignificant is that they are both based upon real life events however when I re-think this I begin to think and appreciate that this is actually one of the more significant similarities. Finally the key similarity when being used for inspiration in a piece of drama is that they both are very emotional and contain hard hitting and real life events which are actually happening right now so they are also somewhat factual.
Of course they are bound to have differences but there are several which spark real interest. In my opinion the key one is the year they were written in; there is a ten year difference between each piece. ‘Ant’s Speech’ written in 1997, has had a long time since it was written so maybe things are not like that today, however I do think racism will be persistent and will never die out completely, the same applies for suicide but I am aware of several anti-racism campaigns since 1997 so maybe numbers of these types of incidents maybe have decreased by a vast amount or possibly even risen making an even bigger problem!
Along with the date written being a major difference the country written in is also a vital point. Americans are known for being very ‘over the top’ so to some people Americans resorting to suicide may not seem as big as an issue. The fact about racism in each country also plays a big role, Americans are probably more tolerant with different races than English, in America there are lots of people with different ethnic backgrounds living in together and different races are generally more tolerant towards one-another.
Both are very inspirational in the types of drama they inspire and both have several element which will remain the same in both. They both feature one predominant character in which we are more than likely intended to focus in on; Ant and Roberta. In accompaniment with each of these they both have an almost open ended amount of family and friends to explore due to the nature of them both being based around school children, the actors could explore two sides of the story in each, family and friends/schoolmates. If I had to chose one I preferred most I would choose ‘Ant’s Speech’ I believe it suits my style of acting well and I personally feel it would be better drama wise and enjoyment. It is also a versatile piece. With two sides to explore and lots of room to use imagination to create ideas for Wassim and his friends it would definitely be the one I would favor.
