#in this case the unofficial strike at Pilkington's glass works in St. Helens in 1970. both Allen and Loach would express some doubts about | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

mariocki · 3 months ago

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Play for Today: The Rank and File (BBC, 1971)

"I mean, the cry of a kiddie, the hungry kiddie, that means much more to me than all the laws and all the prisons in creation. I go along with Trotsky, that life is beautiful; that the future generation cleanses of all the oppression, violence and evil and - and enjoy it to the full."

#play for today #the rank and file #single play #1971 #bbc #ken loach #jim allen #peter kerrigan #bill dean #tommy summers #joan flood #johnny gee #mike hayden #bert king #neville smith #ernie mack #michael forrest #charlie barlow #bernard atha #an early surviving PfT from the very first season‚ reuniting writer Allen director Loach and much of the cast of a previous bbc play The #Big Flame (shown as part of The Wednesday Play in 1969). like Flame this is realistic docudrama dealing with recent industrial action #in this case the unofficial strike at Pilkington's glass works in St. Helens in 1970. both Allen and Loach would express some doubts about #this play in later years (chiefly that it is too closely centred on the specific event that inspired it; altho a nervous bbc insisted names #and locations be changed; without a wider view on the societal issues and workers' exploitation that had caused the strike to begin with)#but personally i think both were being overly harsh: this is a searing‚ infuriating indictment of a system which robbed honest men of their #work and of their reputations‚ backed by the mass media (who falsely reported the strike had been infiltrated by communists looking to #cause mischief; in fact there's evidence the real strike was infiltrated instead by the uk security services to smear the organisers)#and failed by a gutless Trades Union Congress. as tv drama‚ this isn't the most valuable example: it is necessarily dry in places‚ and the #steady pace and narrow focus don't lend themselves to great storytelling exactly. as social document and historical record‚ however?#this is absolutely invaluable and a stirring‚ affecting piece of television that cannot fail to make rail against the capitalist system

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