This film is part of Rentals
Road to Workers' Power: A Pageant of History
Labour history takes centre stage in this punchy musical and dramatic spectacle featuring Corin Redgrave and Frances de la Tour.
Overview
This punchy history of labour in music and drama draws on the talents of actors Corin Redgrave and Frances de la Tour among other well-known figures of the left. Made by the Socialist Labour League (an offshoot of the Workers Revolutionary Party), it covers the Jarrow protests of the 1830s, the Chartists and other strides on the path to "build the Revolutionary Party for our October".
This is a filmed record of an ambitious event staged at the Empire Pool in Wembley in 1973. An example of the 'ground-up' movement in history that was growing in the 1960s and 70s, the pageant was something of a grand project for leftwingers in theatre, film and television - it was co-written by Tom Kempinski and regular Ken Loach collaborator Roger Smith, and the 250-strong list of participants also includes actors Kika Markham, Anna Carteret, David Calder and Malcolm Tierney, director Roy Battersby and artist and filmmaker Yvette Vanson.
