Treatment

Verve House is an office set in north London which distributes clothing to major retail firms. The business is running successfully and employees would be classed as middle class, however there is a spectrum of classes used throughout the characters because of the mixed class society London is today. The boss, Aya, is the woman in charge. She wears a headscarf as it shows she's religious, we chose Islam as the religion of this character because of the current prejudices of western societies and the headscarf is a distinctive symbol of this religion, she is a representation of a strong dominant female as well as a representation of multi cultural London. She is intimidating towards the employees just as any other boss would be.

Some characters are homosexual; some are open about it whereas some keep it secret. In today’s society it is a norm to have any preferred sexuality. However, age and status may get in the way of this norm. The youngest character, the new girl, is homosexual, she is quite open about it; whereas Peter, the PA is married and has a family and feels as though he cannot reveal this about himself. This idea reflects how norms of society have changed rapidly over time.

The new girl character has a 3 month work placement from her university and her family background is from a working. Her role to the audience is to allow them to emphasise with her because she is new and everything would be introduced to her as well as everything being introduced to the audience. Her working class background represents the changing of this class identity, and that she is able to achieve a middle class background. This character also appeals to the younger audience because students would be able to emphasise with her.

The soap also features disabilities. The ‘sexy/handsome guy’ has a mental disorder - ADHD/ADD basically meaning Attention Deficit Disorder which summarises a lot of his characteristics; he has difficulty concentrating. He gets prescribed medication for this. He is accepted and quite popular within the workplace, his disorder does not make him a bizarre character because he has medication for it. It is quite common in the real world for some people to have similar mental disorders, even schizophrenia as long as it is manageable, and in this case: it is.

The representations are well suited for a busy city like London. It is quite normal for London to be multi-cultural and with people who have different views and preferences. Middle-class and students would be the target audience of this soap. Students would be attracted to the professional looking setting, just like the new girl, they would be interested in their future career and what it would be like. Middle classed audiences would be the main target audience. Middle classes are thought to be of high culture and education; they may be interested on the different representations of contemporary UK. Or, they could just be attracted to the narratives and characters.

All the different characteristics of the characters highlights that even in a crowded place like London, anyone can easily feel lonely.