The Way: Most nakedly political drama on primetime TV for 40 years

Michael Sheen‘s imaginative and prescient of a staff’ rebellion in South Wales is essentially the most nakedly political drama screened on primetime British TV for 40 years.

The Way, a three-part drama beginning tonight on BBC1 at 9pm, depicts blood on the streets after an oppressive authorities sends in riot squads, then personal safety squads armed with automated rifles, and eventually the Army – full with helicopters – to crush peaceable demonstrators.

It is an open name to rebel and a normal strike, set across the steelworks of Port Talbot, the place 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 additionally a BBC manufacturing – however at the very least Auntie didn’t first broadcast it in an election 12 months.

In Sheen’s dystopian imaginative and prescient, after the works are taken over by international traders, situations turn out to be so horrific that one younger employee slips and plunges right into a vat of molten steel.

The Way tells the story of the Driscoll household as they turn out to be concerned in civil unrest in Port Talbot sparked by international traders taking on the steelworks resulting in horrific work situations for locals who depend on the trade for jobs

Callum Scott Howells performs Owen Driscoll, the youthful Driscoll sibling who’s recovering from a drug dependancy and suffers with psychological well being issues

The city is reliant on these jobs, and many individuals are afraid to protest. One outspoken firebrand, a grandmother named Dee (Mali Harries) galvanises them with a speech at a union assembly, and a strike is named. Capitalism is the enemy, anarchy is the reply.

Dee has to pull her household along with her. Ex-husband Geoff (Steffan Rhodri) is a average who believes the employees can negotiate and discover center floor with their bosses (boo, disgrace!)

Daughter Thea (Sophie Melville) is a policewoman (class traitor!) and son Owen (Callum Scott Howells) is a druggie who discovers the employees’ wrestle is one thing price residing for (sob!)

The backlash, each from a draconian police drive and from neo-Nazi thugs, is bone-crunching. One man who makes an attempt to movie the march on his cellphone is punched and dragged to the bottom by coppers on their commander’s order: ‘You two! Take him out!’

‘We are implementing complete lockdown,’ declares the military chief. As international staff are bussed in, tear gasoline canisters fly and skulls are smashed with riot shields.

One outspoken firebrand, a grandmother named Dee, performed by Mali Harries, galvanises the employees with a speech at a union assembly, and a strike is named

The oppressive authorities sends in riot squads, then personal safety squads armed with automated rifles, and eventually the Army – full with helicopters – to crush peaceable demonstrators

Sheen’s Welsh nationalist politics are underlined when the native meeting member requires ‘borders inside kingdoms’, to a refrain of cheers

Even gullible Geoff abandons compromise and grows a spine, smashing a glass case within the museum to grab an historical Welsh sword for the battle (there’s a variety of that legendary Celtic imagery, what with the steelworks’ everlasting flame and what have you ever).

Sheen himself, who co-created and directed the sequence, performs the ghost of a union hero from an earlier period. In a mealy-mouthed interview with the BBC, he denied this can be a battle plan for the far Left. ‘It just isn’t like we’re saying, ‘This is what you must do,’ by any means,’ he claimed, ‘however I’ve enormous sympathy for the steelworkers.’

The drama comes after, in actual life, unions at Port Talbot’s Tata Steel had been informed earlier this month that greater than 1,900 jobs are in danger, with the phased closure of two blast furnaces.

‘In no method is that this a blueprint to how folks ought to react,’ Sheen mentioned on the premiere screening final week, ‘however you do not know, do you? I believe inevitably this was going to be a political story.’

The final political villain is recognized in an early scene at a four-year-old’s celebration, the place youngsters are given masks of horrifying politicians to put on.

They sit on the couch watching cartoons – Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Boris Johnson and Kim Jong Un. But essentially the most evil of this bunch is Maggie Thatcher.

That masks is ripped from the kid’s face and hurled from a window, solely to be caught by the wind and cling over the city, haunting the inhabitants. ‘Witch!’ spits one character.

Sheen’s Welsh nationalist politics are underlined when the native meeting member requires ‘borders inside kingdoms’, to a refrain of cheers. When white supremacists storm in later, they wave the Union flag – a hated image to those that need an unbiased Wales.

This is not a fantasy the place the battles of the miners’ strike are refought and this time the employees win. Instead, South Wales degenerates right into a battle zone and households are compelled to flee by means of refugee escape routes.

The message is unmistakable: Britain has didn’t welcome unlawful migrants with open arms. Now pure justice calls for we must always all undergo the identical destiny, and see how we prefer it.

There should be an announcement on the finish: ‘If you could have been affected by any of the problems proven on this programme, additional data is on the market from the Socialist Workers Party.’