What Are Those Blue Remembered Hills? Wider Reading (Drama) 5: Blue Remembered Hills

Dennis Potter's deceptively simple tale relates the activities of seven West-Country seven-year-olds on a summer afternoon during the Second World War.

Easy-going Willie tags along as burly Peter bullies gentle Raymond and is challenged by fair-minded John. Plain Audrey is overshadowed by pretty Angela, and wreaks her angry frustrations on the boys. All of them gang up on the terrified "Donald Duck" who, abused by his mother and ridiculed by his peers, plays his own dangerous game of pyromania which ends in tragedy.

The primary trait of this play is that, although the characters are children, they are all played by adult actors. Childhood is the very epitome of innocence, and the author contradicts this throughout the entire play, as the supposedly guileless children victimise, stereotype, fight and even kill, in their own version of the adult world.

Potter's television play terrifies the audience as they realise what effect their actions have on their young, and gives us a fascinating insight into the benign cruelty of childhood.

Blue Remembered Hills - Identity Quotations