Character Description of Mr Basford

Mr Basford is a character who is in his early forties and is one of the main teachers at Whitewall High School. He is in charge of the timetable at the school and arranges that he only teach the more clever students at Whitewall leaving other teachers with the slow, dumb and trouble-making children to teach. The subject he teachers is never made clear but when he says, Thats why I get the best maths results in the School we are led to believe he mainly teaches maths at the school.

My seems to have a strict discipline with his teaching job at Whitewall and to other teachers seem angry (when he bursts into the Drama Class after there Grease performance), mean (when he yells at Miss Parry at the beginning) and has a huge ego (claiming Im a Genius to Dont talk to me like that) but these reasons are some of the main reasons that make a fun character to play.

Other characters are scared of him like stop talking when he shouts Quiet to them, to pulling away from him when he shouts Hush Down in Mr Basfords classroom. I doubt my character would consider moving to another school as in his many years there hes created an easy teaching life for himself.

My character has mainly confrontational relationships with most of the teachers he appears with. Basford is in the middle of an argument with Miss Parry when we first see the character. Fighting over the fact that he is not getting the lead in The Mikado, he then storms out of her office, but when he sees Mr Nixon meeting her, he sees him as a threat and tries to make his time at the school not an easy one. But during his various meetings with Nixon, I believe he starts to respect his teaching style and in his final scene with Nixon, he shows off his pleasure at getting the lead in next years production at Whitewall High School.

My character does seem upset that he isnt taken seriously but I doubt he bursts into tears. Mr Basford does argue, debate, remain logical with the other characters in this production. This is shown in the conservation with Mr Nixon which ends arguing about Streamlining in the schools system.

From the rehearsal progress for this play I gather an impression of what my character would be like. I believe he would like to set an impression for the students and his fellow teachers by being sharply dressed with nice suits, I think he owns five suits and chooses his favourite to wear for that week. For this reason I chose a suit as my costume for the character.

His mood can be angry when he is in class with his students to being overconfident when he talks with fellow teachers. But its the mood of hidden sadness that surprises me when looking into this character. When Nixon gets the lead in the local theatre production over him, he feels that he is being snubbed and isnt considered as important by other people as he sees himself to be.

Whitewall High School is comprehensive school somewhere in England. The local landscape reminds us of a rural countryside setting, but this school is set in a town. Theres a factory, the noises from it being heard in the school, this is the most common sound you hear about the school apart from children laughing and playing.

Whitewall I believe would be dreary to look at because there has been little money spent to improve the school. The place is cold but has enough heat to keep the students and teachers happy. The colour scheme that Whitewall uses would be grey and white, which keeps to the dreary theme as it has no money to add colour to the school.

This is the twentieth century, the year is 1984, and its some date in late May, the time would be 10.30am and the season is in the spring.

[Originally Posted on my Myspace Blog - 16th June 2006]