Michael Sheen’s vision of a workers’ uprising in South Wales is the most nakedly political drama screened on primetime British TV for 40 years.
The Way, a three-part drama starting tonight on BBC1 at 9pm, depicts blood on the streets after an oppressive government sends in riot squads, then private security squads armed with automatic rifles, and finally the Army – complete with helicopters – to crush peaceful demonstrators.
It is an open call to insurrection and a general strike, set around the steelworks of Port Talbot, where Sheen grew up.
Nothing so clearly partisan has aired since Boys From The Blackstuff, Alan Bleasdale’s depiction of recession Britain in 1982. That was also a BBC production – but at least Auntie did not 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 one young worker slips and plunges 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 steelworks leading to horrific work conditions for locals who rely on the industry for jobs
Callum Scott Howells plays Owen Driscoll, the younger Driscoll sibling who is recovering from a drug addiction and suffers with mental health problems
The town is reliant on these jobs, and many people are afraid to protest. One outspoken firebrand, a grandmother named Dee (Mali Harries) galvanises 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 with her. Ex-husband Geoff (Steffan Rhodri) is a moderate who believes the workers can negotiate and find middle ground with their bosses (boo, shame!)
Daughter Thea (Sophie Melville) is a policewoman (class traitor!) and son Owen (Callum Scott Howells) is a druggie who discovers the workers’ struggle is something worth living for (sob!)
The backlash, both from a draconian police force and from neo-Nazi thugs, is bone-crunching. One man who attempts to film the march on his phone is punched and dragged to the ground by coppers on their commander’s order: ‘You two! Take him out!’
‘We are enforcing total lockdown,’ declares the army chief. As foreign workers are bussed in, tear gas canisters fly and skulls are smashed with riot shields.
One outspoken firebrand, a grandmother named Dee, played by Mali Harries, galvanises the workers with a speech at a union meeting, and a strike is called
The oppressive government sends in riot squads, then private security squads armed with automatic rifles, and finally the Army – complete with helicopters – to crush peaceful demonstrators
Sheen’s Welsh nationalist politics are underlined when the local assembly member calls for ‘borders within kingdoms’, to a chorus of cheers
Even gullible Geoff abandons compromise and grows a backbone, smashing a glass case in the museum to seize an ancient Welsh sword for the battle (there’s a lot of that mythical Celtic imagery, what with the steelworks’ eternal flame and what have you).
Sheen himself, who co-created and directed the series, plays the ghost of a union hero from an earlier era. In a mealy-mouthed interview with the BBC, he denied this is a battle plan for the far Left. ‘It is not like we’re saying, ‘This is what you should do,’ by any means,’ he claimed, ‘but I have huge sympathy for the steelworkers.’
The drama comes after, in real life, unions at Port Talbot’s Tata Steel were told earlier this month that more than 1,900 jobs are at risk, with the phased closure of two blast furnaces.
‘In no way is this a blueprint to how people should react,’ Sheen said at the premiere screening last week, ‘but you don’t know, do you? I think inevitably this was going to be 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 horrifying politicians to wear.
They sit on the sofa 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 most evil of this bunch is Maggie Thatcher. Spotting the mask, Dee exclaims, ‘Really! In this house?’
‘Don’t assume that everyone around you has your politics, Dee Driscoll!’ retorts a granny. ‘I wouldn’t have bought my own house if it wasn’t for her.’ But Dee is having none of it. ‘Well, we don’t need to scare any other kids,’ she sneers. The ‘other kids’ continue to wear their Putin and Trump masks.
That mask is ripped from the child’s face and hurled from patio doors, with a cry of, ‘The enemy will out!’ – and is caught by the wind.
Later, the mask hangs over the town, haunting the inhabitants. At that moment, a narrator reading a fairytale is reciting the words, ‘Where queens cast spells that last forever…’
Sheen’s Welsh nationalist politics are underlined when the local assembly member calls for ‘borders within kingdoms’, to a chorus of cheers. When white supremacists storm in later, they wave the Union flag – a hated symbol to those who want an independent Wales.
This isn’t a fantasy where the battles of the miners’ strike are refought and this time the workers win. Instead, South Wales degenerates into a war zone and families are 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 we should all suffer the same fate, and see how we like it.
There ought to be an announcement at the end: ‘If you have been affected by any of the issues shown in this programme, further information is available from the Socialist Workers Party.’
- This article has been amended to make clear that a character did not shout “witch!” at Margaret Thatcher, as we originally reported.
