Oi! For England

Trevor Griffiths’s short (very short) play written in 1981 is a fascinating choice for a young company to present in 2010. Set during the Moss Side riots in Manchester, it introduces us to Skin band White Ammunition as they rehearse in a basement, which is also full of the goods they have stolen. It’s a snapshot of a period of time when it seemed this country was indeed about to descend into the cataclysmic apocalypse predicted by Enoch Powell in his 'Rivers of Blood' speech.The crux of the drama is simple. The band are all young, unemployed, disenfranchised white lads, and we gather early on, when Jess - the black daughter of the man who rented them the space - is called chocolate drop and spat at, that they are racists. Or are they? The piece opens up debate about what racism means. Are there degrees of racism? They are all proud of their English/Britishness, but guitarist Finn, it is revealed, is actually Irish. When lead singer Nappa arrives late at rehearsal to tell then that a shady character called The Man wants to book them for a gig the divisions in the band begin to manifest. It’s no ordinary gig. Thousands of racist thugs are going to be bussed in from all over the North West. It’s a rallying cry. It’s a latter day Nuremberg.There are huge issues raised here. It’s a fine distinction, between patriotism and racism. If you’re really proud of being British, how can you be a Nazi – the Nazi’s fought the Brits in the war. And what’s a Brit, anyway? Aren’t we all descended form Vikings, Normans etc? Unfortunately the play is so short it barely scratches the surface of some of these issues. There’s a hopeful ending, when Finn is left alone and sings an Irish ballad, then leaves on friendly terms with Jess. Unfortunately it’s all just a little bit too convenient.All the performances are strong, particularly from Lewis Reeves's Nappa and Stephen Bisland’s Finn. A shame then that it is so short. We get a powerful vignette of these people’s lives, but I wanted to know what happened when they left the room. The advertised running time for this show is an hour, not thirty-five minutes. The venue is a bit off the beaten track so needs a certain amount of commitment to get there. For just over half an hour of admittedly quality performance that’s taking the piss a bit.It’s still worth seeing, though, if for no other reason than the terrifying realisation that, though this is in theory a period piece, nothing has really changed. Race is still an issue, increasingly so. Britain, particularly her big cities, is an amazing cultural melting pot, but the tensions of Moss Side, Brixton and Toxteth in 1981 still simmer on elsewhere. Are we any close to solving the problems? Back in ’81 a leader of the fascist parties would not have been invited on to Question Time, and those parties were not winning seats in local elections. With a recession biting deeper than at any time since the early eighties, people are now, as then, looking for someone to blame.Which is reason enough to revive or go and watch this play.