The Drama

Background

Questions for Discussion

1. Why do you think Danny discarded the idea of basing his drama on a junkie, and instead chose to base it on someone like himself?
2. What was his relationship with his classmates like? How would you have got on with them?
3. The character in Danny's improvisation is taunted into going to the rave. Did he really want to go? How could he have avoided going if he didn't want to? Think of situations where you've been pressured into doing something against your will. Perhaps the people who pressured you thought it would be to your benefit. Did you find out as much as possible about what you were letting yourself in for before you made up your mind? How did it turn out in the end? How would you get out of a situation that you didn't want to be in? Do you think peer-group pressure eases off as you get older? What other pressures did Danny seem to be under?
4. Who speaks these lines...?
   1. 'Out of all of us, you're the likely one.'
   2. 'Not my thing, Mum. Never was, never will be.'
   3. 'Next year you'll be off to sixth form college, then university or...'
   4. 'People do drugs to escape life, right? Not me. I'm going to live it. Every millisecond of it...'
   5. 'All his hopes and dreams for the future died with him.'
   Has anyone ever said any of these things to you? Have you ever said them yourself?
5. '...Suddenly it all seemed to click and the whole thing really started coming together. Like we weren't acting any more. We were the characters we were playing.' Although Danny had acted out this bad situation, it seems the same happened to him eight months later in real life. Look again at the quotations in Question 4 above. How do you think Danny got into the situation that killed him?
6. Now watch the documentary to find out what happened on the night he died and to hear Ecstasy users, who have so far been luckier than Danny, talking about their experiences.