Miss Fozzard in Alan Bennetts Talking Heads Essay -- Papers

Miss Fozzard in Alan Bennett's Talking Heads The video, â€Å"Talking Heads Two† was made in 1998. It is a collection of six dramatic monologues by various different actors, each one telling their own story. Bennett wrote a series of monologues in 1988 for BBC 2 at a time when they were having financial difficulties. Monologues were chosen as they only required a few actors and cameramen. They were successful and Bennett decided to write a second series of monologues, the one which I am going to study is called â€Å"Miss Fozzard finds her feet† and I will be discussing how Alan Bennett creates her character and how her story is told. The monologues were written for, and shown on television. The use of the â€Å"talking head† as a dramatic device is effective as the audience sees the expression on the actors face and then feels the emotion the actor is portraying in their role. The effect of using the monologue form is effective as there is only one character so the audience can connect and understand the character better. In the collection of monologues there are no special effects used i.e. flashbacks, distractions also helps the audience understand the character. The audience also has to use their imagination as other characters are only spoken about and not seen so the audience has to imagine what they look like. Also, as the monologues are only set in one scene, for example Miss Fozzard’s lounge, the different locations described by the characters also have to be imagined. The purpose of the monologue is to entertain, however there is a limit to which effects the producers can afford to use however, many wouldn’t be used in a monol... ... tone of voices of the unseen characters used by Patricia Routledge (the actress) creates a successful character. I think her characters exterior seems boring to someone who takes a first glance, but as you get to know her throughout the monologue her character evolves into someone interesting and funny. If I was a member of the audience I think I would find Miss Fozzard inoffensive and quite eccentric. However, I think these qualities in a person are often amusing, as we frequently find in the monologue, and her prejudice views may be at times questionable, but are mostly harmless and funny. The audience would feel that this is only due to Miss Fozzard’s old fashioned manner and this is what she has been brought up to think. Overall, her character is excellently created and brought to life and I enjoyed the monologue.