The 1980s was a shock decade for the UK. The figure leading the shock that rocked the country is Margaret Thatcher sitting at the back of the stage, represented by a skeleton in a wig, determined to usher in an age of neoliberalism which still dominates the country.
The small mining village of Bettheshanger and the five people sitting around a pub table at the start of the show will reel with the events taking place across a painful decade. Benny, George, Lucy, Sammy and Paul are friends, but events will unsettle that friendship.
In a fast, smooth-paced series of short scenes, we witness key events that changed Britain, each character giving a personal touch to what we see.
Sammy (Reed Gyorkey) prefers the navy to the conventional village mining job. He is soon off to the Falklands where the war of 1982 with Argentina leaves some of those he travelled with dead and seriously injured. He also witnesses the last moments of a dying Argentinian, who says he has no idea why they are fighting.
Returning traumatised to Bettheshange, he becomes another witness to Thatcher's attacks on trade unions, which culminate in the dismantling of the mines. In a visually striking moment, the ensemble stands in a group swaying as if descending in a lift, deep into the pit, wondering what is happening on top.
George (David Lundberg) joins striking picket lines travelling long distances to help build a strike against closure, sometimes returning bloodied from police brutality. His partner Lucy (Christy Gosling) has different ambitions and tells him he’s wasting his time. Defeat comes at a traumatising cost, leaving a community dependent on mining jobs uncertain about its future.
By 1988, we see Thatcher stirring up another community friction as she introduced Section 28 banning positive representations of gay people. This only added further stigma to a community hard hit by the rising levels of AIDS.
Towards the end of the 1980s, the pub still gathers the community together. Benny (Cameron Sinden) tells the restless Paul (Sean Wiltshire) about the new and exciting rave culture growing up around the M25. Tempted to check it out, Paul finds them playing the music he has been trying to find an audience for. But the government wasn’t going to allow such fun. They introduced a Criminal Justice Act with the prospect of £20,000 fines and imprisonment.
The stories are laced with occasional songs, individual monologues and sensitive sympathy for a community hit by waves of government oppression. It is an important, entertaining glimpse of events that have shaped Britain today. The devastation of industrial communities left few jobs. The young exited for work and a grim decline created frustration and resentment over what had been lost.