3.2.1.5The text at a glance
On Christmas Day 1962 the James family's dinner is interrupted by the return of Wendell, absent ten years, with a daughter nobody knew about. Ten-year-old Princess dreams of winning a beauty contest. As the Bristol Bus Boycott gathers force through 1963, Wendell finds a purpose in it and the family renegotiates who belongs to whom.
First performed in 2019 and set in 1963. The Bristol Omnibus Company refused to employ Black or Asian crews; a boycott led by local activists forced the policy to be dropped in August 1963 and contributed to the Race Relations Act of 1965.
- the colour bar
- an unofficial but systematic refusal to employ or serve people because of their race
- the Windrush generation
- Caribbean migrants who came to Britain from 1948
- colourism
- prejudice based on skin tone, including within a community
3.2.1.5Characters
Princess's imagination is both her protection and her vulnerability; her childish directness voices questions the adults avoid.
Mavis has held the household together alone, and the play presents her endurance as labour rather than virtue. Her caution about Princess's ambitions comes from experience.
Wendell's charm works on the audience as well as the family, which makes his unreliability harder to dismiss. His relationship with his son Junior is the most damaged and the least repaired.
3.2.1.5Themes
Belonging is examined publicly through the boycott and privately through the household, and the two plots illuminate each other. Beauty standards are treated as a political question: the contest measures beauty by a standard designed to exclude Princess. Racism appears both as organised exclusion and as casual remark.
Common mistake
Treating the boycott as background colour. It is the play's second plot, and Wendell's involvement in it is what changes him.
3.2.1.5The writer's methods
The play moves between domestic realism and Princess's imagined pageant world, which lets the audience see how she wishes to be seen. Public events enter through their effect on the household rather than being staged, and the specificity of Bristol in 1963 anchors the play in a documented campaign.
Worked example
Answer:
- The boycott and the household are two plots about belonging
- The pageant makes beauty standards a political question
- Princess's age lets her ask what adults will not
- Wendell's charm is tested against his reliability
AO1-AO4How this text is examined
This text is examined in Paper 2, Section A. The question is worth 34 marks and two essay questions are offered on your text and you answer one; no extract is printed, so quotations must come from memory. Allow about 45 minutes.
The marks are divided as AO1 12 marks, AO2 12 marks, AO3 6 marks, AO4 4 marks. AO1 rewards a clear argument supported by well-chosen references. AO2 rewards analysis of how the writer achieves an effect, which means writing about choices rather than about events. AO3 rewards context used to deepen a reading of the text.
Common mistake
Retelling the plot. Narrative summary earns nothing under any assessment objective, however accurate it is. Every paragraph should be making a point about how or why, not about what happens.
Four of the marks are for AO4: vocabulary and sentence structures used to control meaning, and accurate spelling and punctuation. These are the cheapest marks on the paper and the easiest to lose by rushing the final paragraph.