United We Stand
Leighton Buzzard Theatre
5 stars

ON TUESDAY there was a letter in the Morning Star from a reader bemoaning the lack of publicity for the Shrewsbury 24 Campaign, which  seeks to overturn the trumped-up convictions of pickets after the 1972 building workers’ strike.

If he goes to see United We Stand, he’ll be heartened at what an excellent advocate of the campaign’s case has just started touring all over the country.

Its creators Townsend Productions have gained a big following in recent years for their class-conscious explorations of literature and history with productions of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists and We Shall Be Free, the story of the Tolpuddle Martyrs.

Now their focus shifts to a more recent and still acute chapter in labour movement struggles, the case of the Shrewsbury 24.

In a bravura display of folk theatre a dynamic duo of William Fox and the play’s writer Neil Gore, under Louise Townsend’s inventive direction, persuasively blend  agit-prop, clowning, visuals, puppetry and some great stand-up style comedy with rousingly performed music and song — the musical direction’s by the great John Fitzpatrick of Fairport Convention renown.

It’s a formidable artistic battery, tellingly deployed not only to tell the story of the three imprisoned pickets — John McKinsie Jones, Rickie Tomlinson and communist Des Warren — but  to point up the background to the strike in the  ’60s and ’70s  when, despite building companies making millions from the housing boom, atrocious conditions and a soaring mortality rate existed on the sites.

It asks too who were the real “conspirators?”

Both performers give empathetic warts-and-all portrayals of Tomlinson and Warren — though their Scouse accents sometimes wandered geographically in the preview show I saw — and they also swiftly and convincingly assume a whole host of other characters ranging from the judiciary, union officials, a game-show host and the north Wales strikers.  

Though bedevilled by technical glitches on the opening night, the duo made a virtue of the obstacles and, by colluding with a hugely appreciative public in recognising the snafus, essentially created the show with the audience.      

The most telling— and comic  — scenes are those in court where a tissue of lies relating to picket “intimidation” are spun by a police inspector, aided and abetted by a judge making a mockery of impartiality.

What it exposes is that the only conspiracy that was going on in 1972  was the unholy alliance  of a Tory government — which a year earlier introduced the draconian, anti-worker Industrial Relations Act — the judiciary and big business.

United We Stand is a grim reminder of how little has changed in the building industry — the lump, pay, safety and blacklisting are still very much at issue.

It is too an invaluable reminder of a time when the ruling class began its concerted attack on labour movement organisation culminating in the miners’ strike of 1984.

And it leaves a bitter sense of injustice at the way the lives of 24 people and their families were sacrificed at the altar of a vicious Tory Establishment. They are, of course,  still living through the consequences today.

As Tomlinson says: “Every worker should know what happened to us so as to ensure it does not happen again.”

There can’t be a better recommendation for going to see this outstanding show than that — and support the Shrewsbury 24 campaign as it puts the pressure on to get justice for the 24.

Tours until November 29, details: townsendproductions.org.uk.
The Shrewsbury 24 Campaign
can be contacted at shrewsbury24campaign.org.uk