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The Churchill play: As it will be performed in the winter of 1984 by the internees of Churchill Camp somewhere in England
The Churchill Play
90 pages, Hardcover
First published November 7, 1974
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 6, 2024
oh this is GREAT
July 5, 2014
This play is both very English and very seventies, and I don't mean that in the usual infantile pop culture revival party sense of the word. It's also about a play within a play.
This is a play unabashedly about England - despite having characters from Wales and Glasgow. It's a very seventies vision of Britain - gloomily brooding in the shadow of the War and Empire, riven by class conflict. The play itself takes place in the 80's - in a brutal anti-Trade Union dictatorship (oddly but perhaps prophetically including a coalition between Labour and Tories). Most of the characters are either guards or inmates of a internment camp "somewhere in England" - with the notable exception of the visiting MP's (oddly including a member of the "Socialist Opposition" who I gave the voice of Dennis Skinner). The play is extremely anti-military, the authors perception of the military clearly influenced by the Troubles, and the common soldierly comes across as more villainous than the ruling class authority figures - in particular a certain working-class Sergant who likes to push around his upper-class "liberal", "bleedin' heart" superiors. Typical obsessions of the young radicals of the time are evident - computers are suspect, threatening things and the government is going to zap everyone's brains with electrodes if they can get away with.
The play's tone is blatantly disrespectful to Churchill - thought not entirely without empathy for him as a person, or without some deference to the power of his myth - and if you find that sort of thing unacceptable you'd be better off with something else or at least grin and bear it. The plays key plot point is that the internees of the camp make a play about Churchill to show off to the MP's, which naturally does not have the desired effect on the inmates. The key theme of the play is degradation - in particular the deliberate degradation of the working man, "Union Men" especially - by the police and army. It's a very masculine environment - there are no women's lib prisoners, and most female characters are on the side of the establishment - either Thatcher-esque or corrupting their husbands with their aspirations to live in a nice house down south away from the nasty moral ambiguity their concentration camp running husbands are involved in.
It's quite weird - and dated, in fact it quite spectacularly fails to be timeless. Everything in it is about a vision of the future that - given the route British history did take in the actual 80's, can no longer be. It's sort of a minor image of the equally dated and weird book 1985, which presented a grim image of a future Britain run by evil Trade Unionists. The refrain of one of the officers wives "I don't want the future to be like this", turns out to be a wish come true of sorts.
This is a play unabashedly about England - despite having characters from Wales and Glasgow. It's a very seventies vision of Britain - gloomily brooding in the shadow of the War and Empire, riven by class conflict. The play itself takes place in the 80's - in a brutal anti-Trade Union dictatorship (oddly but perhaps prophetically including a coalition between Labour and Tories). Most of the characters are either guards or inmates of a internment camp "somewhere in England" - with the notable exception of the visiting MP's (oddly including a member of the "Socialist Opposition" who I gave the voice of Dennis Skinner). The play is extremely anti-military, the authors perception of the military clearly influenced by the Troubles, and the common soldierly comes across as more villainous than the ruling class authority figures - in particular a certain working-class Sergant who likes to push around his upper-class "liberal", "bleedin' heart" superiors. Typical obsessions of the young radicals of the time are evident - computers are suspect, threatening things and the government is going to zap everyone's brains with electrodes if they can get away with.
The play's tone is blatantly disrespectful to Churchill - thought not entirely without empathy for him as a person, or without some deference to the power of his myth - and if you find that sort of thing unacceptable you'd be better off with something else or at least grin and bear it. The plays key plot point is that the internees of the camp make a play about Churchill to show off to the MP's, which naturally does not have the desired effect on the inmates. The key theme of the play is degradation - in particular the deliberate degradation of the working man, "Union Men" especially - by the police and army. It's a very masculine environment - there are no women's lib prisoners, and most female characters are on the side of the establishment - either Thatcher-esque or corrupting their husbands with their aspirations to live in a nice house down south away from the nasty moral ambiguity their concentration camp running husbands are involved in.
It's quite weird - and dated, in fact it quite spectacularly fails to be timeless. Everything in it is about a vision of the future that - given the route British history did take in the actual 80's, can no longer be. It's sort of a minor image of the equally dated and weird book 1985, which presented a grim image of a future Britain run by evil Trade Unionists. The refrain of one of the officers wives "I don't want the future to be like this", turns out to be a wish come true of sorts.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews