Opposite sides of a
friendship:
Ian McDiarmid as Enoch Powell and George Costigan as Clem Jones.
Pictures: Ellie Kurttz
What Shadows
Birmingham Rep Studio
****
20 April, 1968.
Enoch Powell addressed the General Meeting of the West Midlands Area
Conservative Political Centre at the Midland Hotel in Birmingham.
It was a Saturday afternoon and, in the long-gone
days when proprietors felt it their duty to publish newspapers of
record, such an affair would normally fill a small hole at the bottom of
an inside page of the local paper, merely to mark its presence for
posterity.
Except Powell had primed the Press with advance
copies and instead of dull party deliberations he delivered a speech
which still reverberates almost half a century on. Instead of the tiny
ripple such meetings normally caused the Conservative MP for
Wolverhampton South West had unleashed a tsunami, with Press and ATV
cameras looking on.
To Powell it was his Birmingham Speech, to the
rest of the world, his Rivers of Blood speech, whatever the name it
divided the nation.
Conservative leader Edward Heath, already no
great friend of Powell, sacked him as shadow defence secretary the
following evening, the last conversation the pair would have.
The media, Labour government, liberal left and
many in the Conservative party condemned the speech as racist, yet there were mass marches supporting
him and London dockers went on strike protesting at his sacking.
The Wolverhampton Express & Star was deluged with
letters, as was Powell, with more than 90 per cent in support.
Yet, despite the working class, and right wing
support, Powell had effectively sacrificed his political career to his
principles. He was an outcast
in the Tory party and, Birmingham born and Cambridge educated, ended his
political days as Ulster Unionist MP for South Down.
To those who remember he is still seen today as
either a racist or as someone prepared to stand up for England and the
English.
But he was much more complicated than that and in
this REP world premiere writer Chris Hannan tries to unravel the
complexities of a man whose name still stirs emotions today.
Ian McDiarmid is just superb as Powell, a man I
once met as a young reporter in the early 1970s.
Ian McDiarmid as Enoch Powell and the speech that was to
make him famous to some, infamous to others
Not only is there a physical likeness but he has
captured the mannerisms and hesitant speech patterns of the man, while
his slow aging from the formidable former cabinet minister to the old
soldier, alert in mind and frail in body, suffering from Parkinson’s in
his final years, is a quite magnificent piece of acting.
His speech has garnered the misconception that it
was about immigration, it wasn’t, it was about Labour’s Race Relations
Act then going through Parliament which Powell and his party opposed,
but in the speech he talked about immigration and its effects in the
Black Country and other areas, quoting from a
letter telling about the only white woman in her Wolverhampton street,
who talked of ‘grinning pickaninnies’ claiming they spat at her and abused
her.
Rebecca Scroggs plays one of the pickaninnies,
the fictional Rose Cruickshank, now grown up and an Oxford academic who
helped drive out her predecessor, Sofia Nicol, played by Bríd Brennan,
after outing her as a racist.
She is now trying to enlist her collaboration in
writing a manual about identity which gives us two separate time lines, the
fictional academics in the 90s and Powell in the late 60s, the two
merging in the final scenes.
It also gives Hannan a chance to set up the
racism argument, with Rose against it in all its forms, while Sofia
argues that everyone is a little bit racist – echoes of Avenue Q
perhaps.
Back in the 60s and we have another clash between
Powell and Clem Jones, a fine performance from George Costigan, the
editor of the Express & Star.
With their respective wives Pamela, Brennan in
good form again, and Marjorie Evans, in a powerful performance from Paula Wilcox, the
four were close friends – the only four non-fictional characters in the
play.
It was a strange friendship though with Evans
and
Marjorie both Quakers, he being a conscientious objector in the World
War II and with liberal views on immigration and Marjorie even more
against Powell’s warnings on unfettered arrivals. Powell, who had
condemned appeasement of Hitler, had returned from a professorship in
Australia to join up the moment war was declared, rising from private to
Brigadier by the end of the war.
Yet amid his warnings of the dire consequences of
immigration Powell also had many liberal views including supporting the
legalisation of homosexuality and, despite being a Tory, was regarded by
the working classes, as their champion on many issues.
And running parallel is ‘the only white woman in
her street’, the fictional Grace Hughes, played again by Wilcox in a
stellar performance. Her madness and rejection of her 'Paki' husband when we jump to the 90s is quite
moving and distressing.
Grace’s neighbours
include Joyce, Rose’s mum, played again by Scroggs, who sees herself as
a cut above the rest because she has lighter skin, which made her someone in
Barbados. Her daughter, Rose, the young girl played by Christina
Wright-Young, she sees as black though, which still affects the older Rose
who felt racially abused by her mum.
Then there is Sultan a lovely performance from
Phaldut Sharma, who is from Pakistan but is in love with England and is
trying desperately to be English. He is to eventually marry Grace
who lost her husband in the war, perhaps the ultimate act of integration. He is against Sikhs, who are
campaigning to wear turbans on Wolverhampton’s buses, which serves to
illustrate racism is not a black and white subject.
He also looks down on his friend Saeed, played by
Waleed Akhtar, less well
educated, from rural Pakistan. Saeed, who turned down prawn cocktail as
he did not drink alcohol, never fully integrates, never tries to be
English. He is always a Pakistani living in England.
The first act ends with Powell’s speech near
enough in full, a speech which is widely misrepresented ending with
Powell, a Classicist, quoted Virgil, saying “As I look ahead, I am
filled with foreboding. Like the Roman, I seem to see 'the River Tiber
foaming with much blood'.”. It quickly became the rivers of blood
speech and is as powerful now as it was then.
The speech was to destroy the friendship with
Evans, who had previously given him advice on using the media. Marjorie
was not to speak to him again.
It also destroyed the career of the fictional
academic Nicol for her support of Powell’s views.
The second act brings the two timelines
together. Rose finds she was one of the ‘pickaninnies’ who spat at white
woman Grace and called her names, while Powell, a now forlorn figure, is
suffering the tremors and debilitation of Parkinson’s.
The two are to meet in a final interview, which
turns into a debate. Rose hating the man and his views and Powell
standing by them. Whether they reach an understanding is up to the
audience to decide. The debate was interesting but, in truth, hardly
gripping as theatre and was perhaps only carried by McDiarmid’s
mesmerising performance.
The set from Ti Green is basic, with naked trees
in a large expanse of water at the back – Powell’s Tiber perhaps – a
stream at the front and video projection to express changing events and
moods and to establish dates. Minimalist and effective.
Coventry born playwright Hannan has produced a
rounded Powell, neither racist ogre nor people’s champion, but a man who
had intelligence to spare and a character more complex than most. Rep
artistic director Roxana Silbert has echoed that in her direction which
presents the man without prejudice. The play is about identity, about
what is Englishness, how we see ourselves as a nation; it is about
questioning, half a century on, whether the speech was racist or whether Powell made, as Margaret
Thatcher said, valid points in an unfortunate way. The EU referendum
gave Powell’s views a new impetus which showed the driving forces which
prompted Powell’s speech are still there. Like the Birmingham speech, Brexit had the
unfortunate effect of legitimising hostility to minorities.
Wonderfully acted by the cast of eight, even if it did lose pace in the
intellectual sparring at the end, it is a play and a man that will make you think.
To 12-11-16.
tcast
in the Tory party and, Birmingham born and Cambridge educated, ended his
political days as Ulster Unionist MP for South Down.
and
Marjorie both Quakers, he being a conscientious objector in the World
War II and with liberal views on immigration and Marjorie even more
against Powell’s warnings on unfettered arrivals. Powell, who had
condemned appeasement of Hitler, had returned from a professorship in
Australia to join up the moment war was declared, rising from private to
Brigadier by the end of the war.