Modern texts: Chinonyerem Odimba Princess & The Hustler (First teaching 2023, first exam 2025)

The idea

Chinonyerem Odimba's play is set in 1960s Bristol during the historic Bus Boycott. It centres on Princess, a young Black girl with a dream of winning a beauty pageant. The play explores themes of identity, family, and community against a backdrop of racial prejudice. Students analyse how Odimba uses dramatic methods, such as dialogue revealing different backgrounds, and stage directions to show Princess's inner world. The structure, which moves between domestic scenes and fantasy sequences, connects personal aspirations with wider political events.

What earns the marks

• AO1: Trace how Princess’s pageant dream changes as racism enters the family home.
• AO1: Explain why Mavis responds to Wendell with both anger and guarded hope.
• AO1: Compare Junior’s and Wendell’s changing attitudes to family responsibility and protest.
• AO2: Analyse how the domestic plot develops alongside the Bristol Bus Boycott.
• AO2: Explore the theatrical contrast between Princess’s cupboard world and the family’s everyday Bristol home.
• AO2: Analyse how Odimba uses character voice to connect private aspiration with political change.
• AO3: Relate the family’s experiences to the Bristol Bus Boycott and the employment colour bar.
• AO3: Explain how the Windrush generation shapes Mavis’s and Wendell’s pressures and choices.
• AO3: Explore how the pageant plot challenges racialised beauty standards.
• AO4: Choose a precise range of vocabulary so each sentence communicates its interpretation clearly and for the intended analytical purpose.
• AO4: Control sentence structures for clarity, purpose and effect, using complete sentences and secure clause boundaries.
• AO4: Use accurate spelling and punctuation throughout, including sentence boundaries, possessive apostrophes and punctuation around embedded quotations.

Common mistakes and how to put them right

• Retelling the plot without analysing how Odimba uses language or dramatic techniques.

  Put it right: Focus on the writer's methods and their effects, using evidence to support analysis.

• Ignoring the play's historical context or treating it as irrelevant.

  Put it right: Integrate contextual understanding to enrich interpretations of characters' actions and themes.

• Discussing characters as if they were real people without linking to the writer's craft.

  Put it right: Connect characterisation to Odimba's choices and the play's messages.

• Assuming the exam will provide an extract to analyse.

  Put it right: AQA Paper 2 Section A modern texts is a whole-text essay question, so prepare to write about the play as a whole without a printed passage.

• Mislabelling quotation integration or critical vocabulary as AO4.

  Put it right: In this question, textual references and quotations support AO1, and subject terminology supports AO2; AO4 separately rewards technical accuracy of vocabulary, sentence structures, spelling and punctuation.

Exam tips

• Plan your response to address the whole play, ensuring you cover the question's focus.
• Use subject terminology accurately (for example, stage directions, dialogue, symbolism) to show understanding of dramatic methods.
• Support your points with brief, precise quotations or references, and explain their effect on the audience.
• Remember that this question assesses AO1, AO2, AO3 and AO4; integrate quotations as evidence for your interpretations (AO1), use terminology as part of your method analysis (AO2), and proofread for technical accuracy (AO4).