Willy Russell was born on August 23rd, 1947 in Whiston, Lancashire. He grew up in Knowsley, a model village set in the countryside outside of Liverpool. His father ran his own chip shop. Russell attended Woolfall Secondary School for one year, which he left at the age of fifteen later describing it as 'chaotic and badly run.' He left with no legitimate or proper qualifications. Thereafter, he worked as a ladies hairdresser for five years, after that he worked as a labourer for a further year and finally as a teacher. His experience of working at Shorefeilds Comprehensive School in 1973-74 gave him inspiration to write Our Day Out , a play about a group of penniless, and struggling students who are taken on a school trip to Conwy Castle by their generous and friendly teacher, Mrs Kay, and Mr Briggs, a harsh and severe teacher who makes the children work hard. In this essay, I'm going to compare these teachers and decide who is better and more suitable to be the teacher of the Progress Class. Firstly, I will consider and acknowledge the character of Mr.Briggs. Russell immediately shows us at the start of the play that Briggs is very harsh and severe towards the children and that he has a strict understanding about how the children should behave and act. Moreover he admires using his power to control his students. For instance, in scene 5, it clearly shows us that Mr.Briggs is very harsh on the students. 'To enjoy a coach trip we sit in our seats. We don't wander up and down the aisle. We talk quietly to our neighbour, not shout at our mates four seats down. Are you listening, girl! We look nicely out of the windows at the scenery. And we don't do anything else,' yelled Mr.Briggs. He also then roared , 'Get to the front!' We could consider that Mr.Briggs is just making sure the children don't misbehave themselves and so they won't get hurt if the coach unexpectedly stops or crashes. However as we see a few lines later Briggs growled,'Are you listening, girl!' In a staccato tone that shows the readers that he is very stern, likes to control the pupils and is extremely bossy. Later on, in scene 21, Mr.Briggs revealed that he di