What Shadows, Birmingham REP - review and pictures
It unleashed a political storm, splitting the nation - a 3,000 word speech by Wolverhampton South-West MP Enoch Powell.
The location was the former Midland Hotel in Birmingham, the date was April 20, 1968 - almost 50 years ago.
They say time is a healer.
Yet listening to this iconic speech all these years on, the issues sound all too similar to those today.
An influx of immigrants, lack of hospital beds, dwindling school places and neighbourhoods changed beyond recognition.
It was the robustness of the words along with the delivery from actor Ian McDiarmid which most impressed me.
McDiarmid would have known the pinnacle of Chris Hannan's excellent play What Shadows at the Birmingham REP.
And he did not fail to deliver - providing all the passion and emotion Mr Powell can be seen full of all those years ago.
It was as if he was setting alight the racial tensions of the late 1960s.
The story of the last white woman in a Wolverhampton street, use of the term 'wide-grinning pickaninnies' and the call for 'resolute and urgent action'.
The famous line - "As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding; like the Roman, I seem to see "the River Tiber foaming with much blood." - sent shivers down my spine.
This was powerful stuff which set the platform for Hannan's play, which explored the split in society caused and how people on each side of the divide spoke to one another.
Jumping back and forth from the speech in 1962 to 1992, the play focuses on two stories.
One on Powell and his ill-fated friendship with former Express & Star editor Clem Jones, played by George Costigan. It looks at Mr Jones' inadvertent support to Powell ahead of the speech, which leads to the break in their friendship.
Mr Jones, who babysits Powell's children on the night of the speech, is left mortified by the talk, which he orchestrated to ensure maximum media coverage.
The second story covers the story of Oxford academic Rose Cruickshank, played by Rebecca Scroggs, who grew up in the shadow of Powell's speech in Wolverhampton.
She meets Powell in his old age for a show-down to find out what influenced his words, which she says damaged her.
It is a quite brilliant play which raises the issue of British identity superbly.
What is identity, the play asks at one point. 'Being different, and being better' was the response.
Who now dares mention British sovereignty?
What Shadows is at Birmingham REP until November 12.
By Alex Ross
