Michael Sheen’s vision of a workers’ uprising in South Wales is the most naked political drama to appear on British television in forty years.
The Way, a three-part drama starting tonight at 9pm on BBC1, shows blood on the streets after an oppressive government sends in riot police, then private security forces armed with automatic rifles, and finally the army – complete with helicopters – to capture the peaceful protesters.
It is an open call for insurrection and a general strike, set around the Port Talbot steel mill where Sheen grew up.
Nothing so obviously partisan has been broadcast since Boys From The Blackstuff, Alan Bleasdale’s portrayal of Britain’s 1982 recession. That was also a BBC production – but at least Auntie didn’t first broadcast it in an election year.
In Sheen’s dystopian vision, after the works are taken over by foreign investors, conditions become so horrific that a young worker slips and falls into a vat of molten metal.
The Way tells the story of the Driscoll family as they become involved in civil unrest in Port Talbot, sparked by foreign investors taking over the steel mill, leading to horrific working conditions for locals who rely on the industry for jobs.
Callum Scott Howells plays Owen Driscoll, Driscoll’s younger sibling who is recovering from drug addiction and suffers from mental health issues
The city depends on these jobs and many people are afraid to protest. An outspoken troublemaker, a grandmother named Dee (Mali Harries), goads them with a speech at a union meeting, and a strike is called. Capitalism is the enemy, anarchy is the answer.
Dee has to drag her family along with her. Ex-husband Geoff (Steffan Rhodri) is a moderate who believes that workers can negotiate and find a middle ground with their bosses (boo, shame!)
Daughter Thea (Sophie Melville) is a policewoman (class traitor!) and son Owen (Callum Scott Howells) is a drug addict who discovers that working class struggle is something worth living for (gasp!).
The response, both from the draconian police and neo-Nazi criminals, has been heartbreaking. A man who tries to film the march with his phone is knocked to the ground by officers on the commander’s orders and dragged to the ground: ‘You two! Get him out!’
“We are enforcing a total lockdown,” the army chief said. As foreign workers are brought in, tear gas canisters fly and skulls are smashed with riot shields.
One outspoken troublemaker, a grandmother named Dee, played by Mali Harries, goads the workers with a speech at a union meeting, and a strike is called.
The oppressive government sends riot squads, then private security forces armed with automatic rifles, and finally the military – complete with helicopters – to crush peaceful demonstrators
Sheen’s Welsh nationalist politics are underlined when the local MP calls for ‘borders within kingdoms’ to loud cheers
Even the gullible Geoff abandons the compromise and grows a backbone by smashing a display case in the museum to grab an ancient Welsh sword for battle (there are lots of those mythical Celtic statues, with the eternal flame of the steelworks and whatever).
Sheen himself, who co-created and directed the series, plays the ghost of a union hero from an earlier era. In a corny interview with the BBC, he denied that this is a battle plan for the extreme left. “It’s not that we’re in any way saying, ‘This is what you have to do,’” he asserted, “but I have great sympathy for the steelworkers.”
The drama comes after unions at Tata Steel in Port Talbot were told earlier this month that more than 1,900 jobs are at risk due to the phased closure of two blast furnaces.
“This is in no way a blueprint for how people should react,” Sheen said at the premiere last week, “but you don’t know that, do you? I think this would inevitably become a political story.”
The ultimate political villain is identified in an early scene at a four-year-old’s birthday party, where children are given masks of heinous politicians to wear.
They sit on the couch watching cartoons – Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Boris Johnson and Kim Jong Un. But the most evil of this bunch is Maggie Thatcher.
But by far the worst of this bunch is Maggie Thatcher. Dee sees the mask and exclaims, “Really! In this house?’
“Don’t assume everyone around you has your politics, Dee Driscoll!” answers a grandmother. ‘Without her I wouldn’t have bought my own house.’ But Dee is having none of it. “Well, we don’t have to scare other children,” she sneers. The “other kids” continue to wear their Putin and Trump masks.
That mask is torn from the child’s face and thrown through the patio doors, with the cry, “The enemy will come out!” – and is caught by the wind.
Later, the mask hangs over the city and haunts its inhabitants. At that moment, a narrator reading a fairy tale recites the words, “Where queens cast spells that last forever…”
Sheen’s Welsh nationalist politics are underlined when the local MP calls for ‘borders within kingdoms’ to loud cheers. When white supremacists storm in later, they wave the Union flag – a hated symbol for those who want an independent Wales.
This is not a fantasy where the battle of the miners’ strike is fought and this time the workers win. Instead, South Wales is degenerating into a war zone and families are being forced to flee through refugee escape routes.
The message is unmistakable: Britain has failed to welcome illegal migrants with open arms. Now natural justice demands that we all suffer the same fate, and see how we like it.
There should be a notice at the end: ‘If you have been affected by any of the issues shown in this programme, you can obtain further information from the Socialist Workers Party.’
- This article has been edited to clarify that a character is not “witch!” called out. at Margaret Thatcher, as we originally reported.