Our Day Out
Our Day Out was commissioned by the BBC for the series Play For Today, produced by David Rose and directed by Pedr James. It was first broadcast in December 1977 and due to the play’s popularity was broadcast 6 weeks later and again in 1979.
Our Day Out was adapted for the stage by Willy Russell in 1983, commissioned by Liverpool Everyman and directed by Bob Eaton.
'I still watch it today. The performances are exquisite. Shot on 16mm in just three weeks by a first time director working with a largely untrained cast it just seemed to be one of those charmed ventures in which everything just fell into place”.
“A great bonus, for me, is the understated but stunning Nic Jones version of Teddy Bears Picnic over the final credits.”
Cast
Mr Briggs - Alun Armstrong
Mrs Kay - Jean Heywood
Susan - Elizabeth Estensen
Colin - Lennox Greaves
Carol - Julie Jones
Bus Driver - Bill Moores
The play is about a school trip to Wales for kids from Mrs Kay’s progress class - a class for illiterate children.
“It tells of all the things that tend to happen when you get a group of kids together and take them to the seaside”.
“It took about four days to write it but I had taken a long time thinking about it. I'd tried a few times when I was still too close to teaching I think, to have that necessary objectivity. And then I was in London in an apartment… and visiting us one night were two girls who were at St. Katherine's with me.. And during the course of the evening, I began to tell tales of the day I went on a school trip with Dorothy King, and I suddenly realised that I had liberated myself from the actuality of it and I was telling tales I could edit, amplify, and I knew then, that this could be a play one day. But even then, it was another six months before I actually tried it. I tried it a few times and got it wrong and I just hit the right tone this day, so I just stuck with it for four days and wrote it.”
Willy Russell - Willy Russell & his plays, John Gill
When casting Our Day Out director Pedr James spent a month searching for “the right kids”. The child actors came from several schools around Liverpool and none of the young cast had any real acting experience.
In 2018 Our Day Out was released on DVD by Simple Media TV
Reviews
“The exceptional acting of the children, particularly Julie Jones as the desolate Carol, should probably partly be credited to the director Pedr James. Children being good as you allow them to be”.
The Guardian – 1977
“This homely morality is a small masterpiece of film-making. The director, Pedr James, has coaxed out of 30 Liverpool children performances of incomparable naturalness, contrasted with moments of sheer surrealism of the order of Zero de Conduite. His adults hold their end up, with an outstanding performance by Alun Armstrong as an unpopular schoolmaster who takes himself the task of disciplining a backward class on a coach outing… In the course of 70 minutes, I laughed out loud a great deal, and secretly wept a little.”
The Suinday Times – 1978
“Russell allows a blatant political and social message to manifest itself throughout..… It's clear from the off that the future paths of the children in Our Day Out were laid long before they were born”
Curious BritishTelly
“Fresh, lively and natural.”
The Daily Telegraph
“The whole play is helped in communicating its social messages through a series of fantastic performances… These naturalistic performances are married to the adult actors who barely need any introduction. Alun Armstrong and Jean Heywood, in particular, are phenomenal and deliver masterclasses in range… Our Day Out is a fantastic slice of social commentary which remains timeless even 40 years on… A thought provoking piece of art.”
