SMALL AXE

Mangrove (dir. Steve McQueen, BBC1, 15 November 20200

This is the first in an occasional series of television reviews. No spoiler alert – this television film is about historical events. Yet, perhaps, best if you watch it here before watching or reading this review.

Today, we discuss Small Axe – Mangrove, which was on BBC1, Sunday 15 November, directed by Steve McQueen, not a great album by Prefab Sprout, not a great Hollywood actor, but Sir Stephen Rodney McQueen, CBE, a British filmmaker and video artist, born in Hanwell, West London, 1969.

Mangrove is about the events of 1969 to 1971 when Frank Crichlow opened a West Indian restaurant in Notting Hill as a community meeting place, but faced three incidences of police harassment and attacks on the Mangrove. The film presents the eventual, Black Power-inspired community counter-attack, which takes the form of an angry but peaceful demonstration which is disrupted and attacked by the police. The “Mangrove 9”, who included Crichlow and many others, end up on trial, in the Old Bailey, which tended to be used for the most heinous legal cases like treason.

McQueen and Alasdair Siddon’s script is careful, incisive and intelligent, not portraying a uniform group, but an often fractious and complex Notting Hill community, assailed by the mostly hostile Metropolitan Police force. Yet a peaceful and joyous community it is, as in the scenes with the Trinidadian steel band playing and the customers dancing, or with members of the community simply getting together and talking in what they see as a welcoming, safe space. All of this is facilitated by the devoutly religious, hard-working owner Frank Crichlow, brilliantly brought to world-weary life by Shaun Parkes.

Mangrove emphasises the importance in life of telling the truth and making a stand when you see something wrong happening. Related is the need for leader figures within the Black British community which is rooted deep within that community’s own experiences – we see this in the roles 2 of the Mangrove 9 take – Darcus Howe (Malachi Kirby) and Altheia Jones-LeCointe (Letitia Wright) – who defend themselves and their fellow defendants in court.

For me, the crucial line is when Rhodan claims naively that he can represent himself in court like Darcus and Altheia, telling Frank that “It’s every man for him own self.” To which Frank wisely replies: “Eh! It’s dem and we…” Which ends the scene and emphasises the need for preparation and skill, which Darcus and Altheia have in abundance, and how callow individualism would reduce the strength of the community’s collective voice.

The tone includes humour – there is considerable situational irony in the scene when Judge Clarke tells Darcus off for wearing a beanie-style hat when he himself and all other legal officials are wearing their grey wigs. It is also deeply incisive about wider social ills when PC Pulley gives his dishonest testimony in court about how the Mangrove restaurant was “a haunt of criminals, prostitutes, ponces and the like…” which Darcus Howe later claims is “a myth that has been created about us”, the West Indian community in Notting Hill. A myth which has unfortunately persisted, still resonating in what gets said and printed in our media.

I would link Mangrove with certain recent BBC1 drama series that also depict institutional biases and blind spots of the British legal system with entertaining and illuminating courtroom scenes: Russell T. Davies’s A Very English Scandal (2018) and Amanda Coe’s The Trial of Christine Keeler (2019). These variously dramatized ingrained biases towards straight men and imbalances in power according to social class. Mangrove depicts the British legal system reluctantly being forced to come to terms with racial biases and the truth does out, in this case. Magna Carta, she did not die in vain! Traditional English trial by jury works here the truth is told with sufficient eloquence by Howe and Jones-LeCointe who are juxtaposed with PC Pulley’s arrant, errant lies.

Yet, any “feel good” triumphalist tone is rightly undercut and dissipated at the film’s end: a battle has been won, yes, Britain does make a notable step towards becoming a more inclusive place, but, as the factual on-screen captions inform us, the London Metropolitan police harassment of the Mangrove and its founder Frank Crichlow continued until 18 years later, in 1989… I sense we will get the jubilant, upbeat story with film #2, Lovers Rock, but before that, McQueen here delivers a necessary historical reality check.

Rachel Cooke, television critic of the New Statesman, welcomed this kind of story being told on British television, but added what I feel is an absurd caveat to her evaluation. She expresses reservations about there being too many lengthy speeches. Yes, apparently, a dramatization of one of the most significant trials ever held in this country, at the Old Bailey, needed long speeches cutting down! Surely, a drama of history and ideas and conflict like Mangrove needs this discursive element: it is great to see lots of stimulating and passionate talk on television. While I am certainly not saying that all TV drama needs complex, lengthy speeches, I do feel a bit of the old Trevor Griffiths approach of writing passionate, uncompromising talk is something we need as part of TV drama.

And the actors brilliantly perform these speeches, and other briefer exchanges. Jack Lowden is wonderfully chastened and responsive, adding the lawyer Ian MacDonald to his repertoire of historical British figures: Thomas Wyatt, Stephen Patrick Morrissey, Tony Benn and, perhaps, post-Covid, Siegfried Sassoon… Rochenda Sandall, who I remember seeing in the most recent Line of Duty series, is combative, open, humane but tough. I was talking there about Trevor Griffiths, well what about Derek Griffiths here, wonderfully cast as the Marxist historian, C.L.R. James, long after Play Away, Play School and Play for Today but fully channelling their spirit. Sam Spruell as PC Pulley plays the part with venal deceit, conveying this Constable’s ingrained, unearned sense of racial superiority and casual corruption. This is a fine performance from Spruell in a very difficult role… We still have to come to terms with the history of people like Pulley and their presence today.

Ultimately, this first Small Axe film, Mangrove is a tremendous, carefully calibrated and emotionally and intellectually powerful drama based on real events in 1970: worthy of the name of a 2020 Play for Today. Anyone remotely interested in British history, law or politics, or indeed film or TV drama, should watch it. Really anyone, globally, should try and tune in and watch this on BBC iPlayer, as it has universal resonance beyond its fascinating historical particularities.

Does anyone know whether there were any drama anthology strands of unconnected one-off plays similar to the BBC’s Play for Today (1970-84) from other countries? I ask as I am studying a PhD project that aims to be a history and analysis of PFT and I am conscious of a certain parochialism in my research which I want to address, plus, I am just genuinely stumped on this and wanting to find out!

I am aware of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU)’s 1960s-70s transnational pan-European project ‘The Largest Theatre in the World’. Plus, that there were US strands which broadcast plays by Paddy Chayefsky, Reginald Rose, Gore Vidal, Rod Serling and others: the one I am aware of is Playhouse 90 (1956-60). I am also aware there was much “authored” TV work in Europe by film and theatre luminaries such as Ingmar Bergman, Jacques Rivette and Rainer Werner Fassbinder – though these were, I gather, primarily TV films or mini-series rather than for anthologies?

I am aware of the more populist, ‘genre’-based TV anthology traditions of the US and UK – The Twilight Zone (CBS, 1959-64), The Outer Limits (ABC, 1963-65), Night Gallery (NBC, 1970-73) and UK equivalents Thriller (ATV, 1973-76), Armchair Thriller (Thames/Southern, 1978-80) and Tales of the Unexpected (Anglia, 1979-88), some of which involved creative personnel who also worked on Play for Today: notably, John Bowen, Robin Chapman and Alan Gibson.

Many thanks in advance for any help you can give: you’ll be acknowledged in my published PhD if you can assist! Please comment here or email me at t.may@northumbria.ac.uk.

I was delighted to speak yesterday at a fantastic event, Play for Today at 50, from 10.50am, on a panel including Simon Farquhar and John Cook and chaired by Katie Crosson. This necessarily Zoom-based event was on the fiftieth anniversary day of the first broadcast of PFT, as rebranded from The Wednesday Play (1964-70). I outlined a statistical history of the PFT strand, using data visualisation, which would have been infinitely less striking without Rachel Queen’s help!

Simon Farquhar (writer and dramatist) spoke eloquently and emotionally about the small domestic strain of PFT which is rooted in deep emotional truths, lovingly explaining the quality of Julia Jones, Colin Welland and John Challen’s work. John Cook (Glasgow Caledonian University) added to Simon’s extolling of the video studio aesthetic, in deeply questioning “the inexorable logic of film”. John also gave an invaluable account of interviewing Graeme McDonald and made the point that while seen by some as a bland figure, he was a very efficient producer, responsible for producing 4 of the 6 Plays for Today that won BAFTAs for ‘Best Single Drama’, including Spend Spend Spend (1977) – plus, two McDonald-produced PFTs contained ‘Best Actor’ performances: John Le Mesurier in Traitor (1971) and Celia Johnson in Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont (1973). John’s critical account of institutional change and the anti-video turn was compelling and elegiac with an underlying polemical edge.

The next panel, which I chaired, featured Vicky Ball (De Montfort University) outlining statistics which complemented my own, discerning a decline in the percentage of women working on TV plays from the 1950s to 70s. However, her findings, which accord with mine, noted the significant fact that in Play for Today’s final third (1980-84), 50 per-cent of PFT‘s total credited women writers were employed. There was a definite improvement, following Margaret Matheson’s enabling of Mary O’Malley (RIP) and Caryl Churchill, producers like Innes Lloyd, John Norton, W. Stephen Gilbert, Kenith Trodd and Alan Shallcross all commissioned work by women writers in this era. Vicky also presented interview testimony from writer Paula Milne about her experiences in working at the BBC, some of which were, as Katie Crosson rightly claimed, was “harrowing”. Next, Eleni Liarou (Birkbeck, University of London) outlined a fascinating range of Plays for Today that engaged in complex representations of race including many I must watch: Murder Rap (1980) and Three Minute Heroes (1982), which Helen Wheatley (Warwick University) and others presented for a public screening in Coventry Cathedral in 2018.

Then, Katie Crosson (Royal Holloway, University of London) discussed elisions from the canon of publicly remembered creative personnel on Play for Today, especially championing writer Carol Bunyan (Ladies 1980, Sorry 1981) and producer Irene Shubik and eloquently adding to mine and Simon’s case for Colin Welland as an incredible powerhouse of an actor-writer. Katie’s timely and forceful talk is supplemented by her evocative online exhibition hosted by the BFI and BBC here.

The Q and A included an intelligent discussion from all of the narratively well justified blackface sequence in Barrie Keeffe’s Waterloo Sunset (1979), as well as a lament that nobody seemed to have interviewed Rita May, who wrote England’s Green and Peasant Land (1982). In response to a question from John Wyver, Eleni persuasively argued that PFT was generally one of the more progressive programmes in its representations.

The final panel began with Jonny Murray (Edinburgh University) who contrasted the Scottish-themed plays made from BBC London (though usually filmed on location in Scotland) with a corpus of 14 neglected PFTs made by BBC Scotland. Even I have only seen one of them, Alma Cullen’s neglected delight, Degree of Uncertainty (1979), video-recorded on OB in Edinburgh. In the chat, Vicky Ball and I agreed it was reminiscent of Willy Russell’s stage drama Educating Rita (1980) and Vicky compared it to Helen: A Woman of Today (1973). Simon Farquhar was vocal in criticising the calibre of some of the BBC Scotland plays, which led to lively discussion! Jonny did a vital service in bringing this neglected corpus to our attention: hopefully with a widening of access more than just a select band of academics and enthusiasts may get a chance to decide for themselves…

Finally, John Hill (Royal Holloway, University of London) characterised the 1980s Northern Ireland plays as generally conveying a more consistent bleakness regarding the Troubles, whereas he argued that a range of 1970s Northern Ireland-set PFTs were far more various and complicated in their representations of the Six Counties. Drawing on archival sources and close viewing, Hill incisively compared Carson Country (1972), Taking Leave (1974), The Dandelion Clock (1975), Your Man from Six Counties (1976) and The Last Window Cleaner (1979) – an absurdist comedy which sounded a one-off even among one-offs. John ended on the salient point that the sort of “hard man” working-class Catholic culture Peter McDougall portrayed on screen was echoed by Graham Reid and Paul Seed’s presentation of the violent Thomas Martin (James Ellis) in the Protestant Belfast-set Billy trilogy (1982-84). Aggression and a degree of toxic masculinity were common across sectarian cultural divides.

Most significantly of all, the event included interviews with several of the most important producers and script editors who worked on the show: Tara Prem, Sir Richard Eyre, Peter Ansorge and Kenith Trodd. Ken’s wonderfully rich reminiscences were a vital counterpoint to Simon and John C’s well argued cases in favour of the VT studio aesthetic. There was exemplary interviewing from Simon, Vicky, Ian Greaves and John Wyver, who wrote and directed Monday’s sterling BBC Four documentary Drama out of a Crisis: A Celebration of Play for Today.

Earlier, John had opened the event with a keynote lecture on Wednesday evening, from 6.30pm – 8pm. This discussed his personal history with Play for Today from watching Robin Redbreast as a fifteen year old to writing previews (basically review critiques!) for Time Out magazine and attending the location shoot of Plays for Today including Long Distance Information (1979).

Most crucial of all to the smooth running of this symposium was Lilly Markaki (Royal Holloway, University of London) who kept the whole Zoom show on the road. This helped facilitate what will hopefully become many new ideas, projects and friendships. It all felt like that much abused term, a community: dedicated to understanding the past better and looking forwards.

To complement my paper, which aimed ambitiously (!) to provide a broad statistical history of the Play for Today strand within 15 minutes, I have a few extra morsels of research to share. Please correct me if I have made any errors, or if you are aware of any productions I may have missed; this would be a great help and I would be most grateful.

Firstly, I have a provisional list of the Plays for Today that were original commissions for television* but which were subsequently turned into theatre productions. They are listed in chronological order of original PFT transmission date (in brackets, followed by the date of the first theatre adaptation and place of production if known):

1. John BOWEN – Robin Redbreast (1970 / 1974 – Guildford, Surrey)
2. Adrian MITCHELL – Man Friday (1972 / 1973 – London)
3. Dennis POTTER – Only Make Believe (1973 / 1974 – Harlow, Essex)
4. Bernard KOPS – Moss (1975 / 1991 – London)
5. Jack ROSENTHAL – Bar Mitzvah Boy (1976 / 1978 – London)
6. Jack ROSENTHAL – Spend Spend Spend (1977 / 1981 – Oldham, Gt. Manchester)
7. Mary O’MALLEY – Oy Vay Maria (1977 / 1996 – Oldham, Gt. Manchester)
8. Caryl CHURCHILL – The After Dinner Joke (1978 / 1998)
9. Wally K. DALY – Butterflies Don’t Count (1978 / 1982 – London)
10. Mike STOTT – Soldiers, Talking Cleanly (1978 / 1981 – London)
11. Dennis POTTER – Blue Remembered Hills (1979 / 1985 – Edinburgh)
12. Andrew CARR – Instant Enlightenment Including VAT (1980 / 1981)
13. Peter RANSLEY – Minor Complications (1980 / 1984)
14. Graham REID – Too Late to Talk to Billy (1982 / 1990 – Belfast)**

Appendix of an appendix! The following seem loosely related to previous PFTs rather than adaptations as such? :

Barrie KEEFFE – King of England (1988) – King (PFT 1984)
Barrie KEEFFE – Not Fade Away (1990) – Waterloo Sunset (PFT 1979)

* I have also included Spend Spend Spend which was an original commission for TV, but which originated in transcripts of interviews with Vivian Nicholson that Jack Rosenthal then fashioned into a screenplay.
**I am unsure as of yet whether the second and third Billy plays have been staged. Surely they have been in Belfast at some point?

List of Plays for Today that were later made as films (if adaptations the original writer is noted; in bold if they were original PFTs):

1. Adrian MITCHELL – Man Friday (1972 / 1975)
2. Colin WELLAND – Kisses at Fifty (1973 / 1985 – as Twice in a Lifetime)
3. Elizabeth TAYLOR (novel) – Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont (1973 / 2005)
4. Helene HANFF (novel) – 84 Charing Cross Road (1975 / 1987)
5. John BYRNE – The Slab Boys (1979 / 1997)
6. Robert C. O’BRIEN – Z for Zachariah (1984 / 2015)

N.b. Not including Brimstone and Treacle (1976 / 1982) or Scum (1977 / 1979) as they weren’t broadcast as PFTs during its run. Maeve (Dir. James Ormerod, CAN, 1987) was a TV Movie follow-up to Graham Reid’s Billy trilogy.