This well-remembered (by socialists, anyway) BBC series from 1975, from the formidable team of Jim Allen and Ken Loach, has just been released on a Ken Loach box set.
The whole set is self-recommending (the presence of David Mercer's oustanding In Two Minds alone would make it so), but Days Of Hope is something else entirely.
I'll confess to finding the first two episodes heavy-going. Allen and Loach's broad proletarian sympathies are understandable, but I found the depiction of working-class people becoming politicised a bit laborious (no pun intended). However, once you hit Part 3 and the election of the first Labour government, it all begins to make sense. In come the Tories - with some stuningly convincing portrayals of Baldwin, Simon, Stevenson, et al - and it's made clear to us just how easy it was for the ruling classes to strangle British socialism at birth. A railway encounter between newly-elected Labour MP James Hargreaves and his Tory neighbour is absolutely chilling in its forced politeness.
All in all, we're left to wonder at how effectively the working-class was betrayed by the first generation of supine, useless Labour politicians, most of whom were far too eager to join the ruling elite. Indeed, we see Hargreaves himself (supposedly a left-winger) succumbing to creeping embourgeoisement.
Brilliant stuff: you do really feel like you're watching these events unfold, as the sets/costumes/casting/direction/writing are so convincing.
Whatever your politics, you should watch this.
The whole set is self-recommending (the presence of David Mercer's oustanding In Two Minds alone would make it so), but Days Of Hope is something else entirely.
I'll confess to finding the first two episodes heavy-going. Allen and Loach's broad proletarian sympathies are understandable, but I found the depiction of working-class people becoming politicised a bit laborious (no pun intended). However, once you hit Part 3 and the election of the first Labour government, it all begins to make sense. In come the Tories - with some stuningly convincing portrayals of Baldwin, Simon, Stevenson, et al - and it's made clear to us just how easy it was for the ruling classes to strangle British socialism at birth. A railway encounter between newly-elected Labour MP James Hargreaves and his Tory neighbour is absolutely chilling in its forced politeness.
All in all, we're left to wonder at how effectively the working-class was betrayed by the first generation of supine, useless Labour politicians, most of whom were far too eager to join the ruling elite. Indeed, we see Hargreaves himself (supposedly a left-winger) succumbing to creeping embourgeoisement.
Brilliant stuff: you do really feel like you're watching these events unfold, as the sets/costumes/casting/direction/writing are so convincing.
Whatever your politics, you should watch this.
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