Diploma in

Performing &
Production Arts
Unit 8 Project Proposal

Candidate Adam Murdock

Name
Candidate 371346
Number
Pathway Performing and Production Arts Level 3: Acting

Project Title FMP – A Series of Public Apologies

Section 1: Review
I joined this course with the hopes of being able to grow my skills as an actor and meet peers I felt I
could resonate with more than those at sixth form. I have gladly not been disappointed on either of these
fronts, my time on this course, albeit challenging, has pushed me and developed my skills in ways that
simply wouldn’t have been possible in my previous environment. Furthermore, I feel I can connect with
the people on this course, and they too constantly help with my development, each having unique acting
styles and ways of thinkings which I hope to take on to flesh out my own acting.

I was initially concerned about whether I would fit in and if I had the right background to embark on this
course. My only experience of acting prior had been in secondary and sixth form (which didn’t properly
accommodate itself towards acting) as well as Rag and Bone which is where the majority of my acting
knowledge and skills first came from. Luckily, I had found that the skills I had gained were enough to get
me started. Whilst I still lack knowledge in areas others may find common, I found that my
determination to grow helped me quickly adapt and become accustomed to the course.

Furthermore, I found that this course has greatly improved my confidence, before I felt incapable of
expressing my own opinions (viewing them as inferior) but encouragement from peers and practitioners
has caused me to become far more open, even if there is still progress to be had. Finally, on this course I
have been able to discover new elements of performing arts which I love, whilst acting is still my
primary passion, having my view expanded on the subject has allowed me to appreciate it and alternative
areas to a deeper degree.

Section 2: Project Concept

For FMP this year we are conducting ‘A Series of Public Apologies’, a play by John Donnelly. The play,
whilst comedic in nature, is a commentary and reflection of society at the time it was written (2019),
leading the plot to be about protests, irresponsible members of government and overall social unrest. A
unique detail about the play is that the script doesn’t have any lines tied to characters, allowing us to
effectively interpret the script however we choose. I find this freedom both exciting and quite daunting as
it leaves us with not much to initially work off. But luckily, through a process of allocating groups to
each scene, we were able to come up with a general foundation by embracing everyone’s creative input.
This has led to us exploring many different concepts, one I’m personally fond of being the incorporation
of stage combat when building upon a slow-motion scene. Why I find this so particularly interesting is a
mixture of all the moving parts one has to be aware of and the fundamentals behind slow motion which
one can’t break at any point in time without the scene looking bad. The discipline required for a scene
like this I find challenging but extremely engaging. Ultimately, our main goal is to balance the serious
and comedic elements of our piece, so it becomes something that’s capable of moving our audience
whilst still being entertaining and fun.

Section 3: Evaluation
Regarding FMP, I want to work on balancing my personal and professional life. I have found that
recently I’ve had trouble designating the proper amount of time towards work due to me trying to uphold
some relationships that were significantly time consuming, some may consider even taxing towards my
work. After constructing this balance, I will make notes week by week so that the weekly video journals
may be completed to a high degree of detail and quality, allowing me to look back on them and clearly
comprehend my journey throughout the development of the piece. I aim to use both current and previous
practitioners feedback to grow my acting skills as I feel I was given incredible feedback in the past which
has been a difficult and ongoing process to work on and improve.

Proposed Research Sources and Bibliography (Harvard Format)

Matthew Lelii. 13 July 2022. “Trust in government, UK: 2022” Office for National Statistics. [Online]
Available at: Trust in government, UK - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk) [Accessed 29 February
2024]

The Telegraph. 15 June 2023. “Boris Johnson: A timeline of Partygate denials” The Telegraph. [Online]
Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrUlQFbap4Q [Accessed 7 March 2024]

Dorothy Wickenden. 21 January 2022. “Can Partygate Bring Down Boris Johnson?” The New Yorker.
[Online] Available at: https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/politics-and-more/can-partygate-
bring-down-boris-johnson [Accessed 7 March 2024]

Scottish Centre for Administrative Data Research. 14 March 2023. “NEWS - When did fines issued by
the police for breaking Covid rules peak?” Scottish Centre for Administrative Data Research. [Online]
Available at: https://www.scadr.ac.uk/news-and-events/news-when-did-fines-issued-police-
breaking-covid-rules-peak#:~:text=The%20median%20cost%20of%20a,in%20an
%20economically%20deprived%20area. [Accessed 7 March 2024]

BBC News. 11 January 2022. “100 invited to Downing Street garden lockdown drinks” BBC. [Online]
Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-59930733 [Accessed 7 March 2024]

Ioanna Toufexi. 15 January 2022. “Boris Johson lookalikes enjoy ‘work drinks’ and party outside
Downing Street” CambridgeshireLive. [Online] Available at:
https://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/boris-johnson-lookalikes-enjoy-work-
22765600 [Accessed 7 March 2024]

History.com Editors. 5 February 2020. “2019 Events” history. [Online] Available at:
https://www.history.com/topics/21st-century/2019-events [Accessed 7 April 2024]

James M. Lindsay. 23 December 2019. “Ten Most Significant World Events in 2019” Council on Foreign
Relations. [Online] Available at: https://www.cfr.org/blog/ten-most-significant-world-events-2019
[Accessed 7 April 2024]

Samuel Petrequin and Lori Hinnant. 15 April 2019. “Massive fire engulfs beloved Notre Dame Cathedral
in Paris” apnews. [Online] Available at: https://apnews.com/general-news-travel-
73404d09773740f699d4b92933abec50 [Accessed 7 April 2024]

Mansoor Iqbal. 8 April 2024. “TikTok Revenue and Usage Statistics (2024)” Business of Apps. [Online]
Available at: https://www.businessofapps.com/data/tik-tok-statistics/#:~:text=It%20was
%20downloaded%20693%20million,social%20networking%20in%20the%20West [Accessed 7
April 2024]

Katie Jones. 25 January 2020. “Ranked: The World’s Most Downloaded Apps” Visual Capitalist. [Online]
Available at: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/ranked-most-downloaded-apps/#:~:text=Social
%20media%20giant%20Facebook%20owns,for%20the%20fourth%20year%20running
[Accessed 7 April 2024]

Statista. January 2020. “Share of smartphone users on TikTok in the United Kingdom (UK) in December
2019, by age group and gender” Statista. [Online] Available at:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1091438/tiktok-penetration-demographics-in-the-uk/
[Accessed 7 April 2024]

Josh Howarth. 12 January 2024. “TikTok User Age, Gender & Demographics (2024)” Exploding Topics.
[Online] Available at: https://explodingtopics.com/blog/tiktok-demographics [Accessed 7 April
2024]

Celia Fernandez. 31 December 2019. “11 fashion trends that need to disappear in 2020” Business
Insider. [Online] Available at: https://www.businessinsider.com/worst-popular-2019-fashion-
trend-2019-12 [Accessed 7 April 2024]

Hannah Huber. 21 November 2019. “The 2019 Fashion Trends You’ll Still Be Wearing in 2020”
Glamour. [Online] Available at: https://www.glamour.com/gallery/best-fashion-trends-2019
[Accessed 7 April 2024]

Jessica Booth. 25 November 2019. “The Biggest Food Trends of 2019” redbook. [Online] Available at:
https://www.redbookmag.com/food-recipes/g29894955/biggest-food-trends-2019/ [Accessed 7
April 2024

Joy Sharon Yi and Christian Caryl. 10 December 2019. “The year of the street protest” The Washington
Post. [Online] Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/opinions/global-
opinions/2019-was-the-year-of-the-street/ [Accessed 8 April 2024]

Maher Mezahi. 20 February 2021. “Algeria’s protests are back and the president is worried” BBC.
[Online] Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-56128140 [Accessed 8 April 2024]

James M. Lindsay. 23 December 2019. “Ten Most Significant World Events in 2019” Council on Foreign
Relations. [Online] Available at: https://www.cfr.org/blog/ten-most-significant-world-events-2019
[Accessed 8 April 2024]

Heather Stewart. 24 May 2019. “Theresa May announces she will resign on 7 June” The Guardian.
[Online] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/may/24/theresa-may-steps-
down-resigns-tory-leader-conservative-brexit#:~:text=Theresa%20May%20has%20bowed
%20to,Britain%27s%20second%20female%20prime%20minister [Accessed 8 April 2024]

BBC News. 5 February 2020. “Trump impeachment: The short, medium and long story” BBC. [Online]
Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-49800181 [Accessed 8 April 2024]

Project Action Plan and Timetable

Week Date Week Activity / What you are intending to do - Resources / What you will need to do it -
Beginning including independent study including access to workshops

During the first week of FMP, we played a Script and folder for the script
19th couple of games to initially warm everyone Something to take notes on
February up to each other and our new practioners. Pen
These games evolved into call and Water Bottle (so that one doesn't have to
response exercises before we sat down to leave a session to hydrate)
do a first read through of our newly assigned
script. Upon completing our read through we
discussed, as a group, what themes or
things within the play had personally
resonated with us and what do they remind
us of, so that we had a potential foundation
to springboard ideas from. Eventually this
led to us making tableaus of the main
themes of the play.
During the second week we expanded upon Script
26th our tableaus now aiming to tackle some of Folder
February the deeper themes rather than surface level Notebook and pen
as well as made tableaus for specific Water Bottle
scenes. We retried our call and response Device to conduct research
exercises now keeping in mind these
themes for the practical trying to incorporate
moves we felt could connect to the piece.
We were further tasked with creating a
presentation after being given a question
related to the play, my presentation being
the second on the list with the question ‘How
have recent political scandals in the UK
impacted the public’s trust in the
government?’
We embarked upon mapping out the first act Script
4th March with our practicioner’s initial ideas and Folder
concepts leading us to get a rough idea on Notebook and pen
initial castings (Nox, Bennie, Hana and Water Bottle
Giorgio being SLT staff whilst Freddie, Device to record my presentation
Emma, Molly and Cloe took up the role of
assistants). After this, groups were formed
to create choreography for the scenes they
were designated with. During this 2 people
(Katherine and Demelza) were given the
task to deconstruct and analyse Act 4 scene
 3, which they would later perform.

It was also this week where I had to conduct

my presentation and due to the first person
being unable to attend, I was required to go
first. This went debatably well and after
doing my presentation I had to take notes on
some of the following presentations.
We progressed onto act 2 and 3 with me Script
11th March being assigned the role of the prime Folder
minister, then after completing this to a Notebook and pen
satisfactory degree attempted a full run Water Bottle
through of what we had. We decided to
have one of the SLT members never switch
to have a string of consistency and within
my own scene my assistant (Nox) would
signal to me at various points in time where
the script had made it seem the prime
minister messed up a line.

In movement, in groups, we made some

choreography with the themes of the play in
mind before trying out freeze frames as an
entire group with the intent of depicting a
riot.
More characters were assigned this week Script
18th March along with continuing to improve on scenes Folder
we already had. The most worked on scene Notebook and pen
being the riot, instead of it being a chaotic Water Bottle
mess we finally had it choreographed so
that everyone would know where to be at
any given point in time during the riot
(leading to a far more cohesive scene). We
manipulated the usage of slow-motion
having parts be slowed down whilst others
maintain regular pace to attract attention to
more important aspects of the scene.
Finally, we began working on the last
scenes in groups.
The start of intensives. A major thing that Script (Although I’m confident without it)
15th April occurred this week was the implementation Folder
of an opening dance sequence that I got to Notebook and pen
be a part of. The point of this dance being to Water Bottle
essentially set the scene as it's supposed to Potentially parts of costume if I'm in
be a dramatic representation of the incident possession of the correct items (although
being committed (the words being written in this can be provided)
the bathroom) with the dance closing with
everyone acknowledging the words on the
wall. We worked on transitions a lot during
this week, trying to make our piece feel
seamless and smooth as opposed to
individual scenes that feel somewhat in
isolation due to the staggered way we went
about going from scene to scene. I did some
significant character work on the Prime
Minister, thinking about their motives and
 feelings and began actioning every line to
have a clear intention. We also saw the
initial concept of our costumes this week.
22nd April We did a full run through this week, this Script
meaning we have finally done work on every Folder
scene. We have begun implementing props Notebook and pen
when we run through scenes, allowing us to Water Bottle
get used to not miming on stage and
bringing on/taking off said required props.
I've begun trying to develop the character of
the SLT in act 4 although progress has been
difficult as I find I sometimes lean towards
the patronising side of the character,
opposed to being chilled and relaxed as
intended. Did some work on the final scene
and the route the jackets will be taking as
they are passed along.

29th April This week marks the completion of FMP. In Notebook and pen
this week we did many runs on the actual Water Bottle
stage allowing us to get used to the set and
ran through our performance whilst working
on lighting and sound queues (this
predominantly being the tech week). We got
used to our costume changes and minor
things were tweaked in some scenes for the
sake of simplicity on stage after having to
get used to the new set. This week
concluding with our 2 shows which I
personally believe were rather successful
with only a couple minor hiccups arising in
the performance, prop management being
the largest issue. But ultimately things have
ended well, and I am proud of the shows we
put on as a group.