The Angry Brigade was a small cell of left-wing, anti-elitist urban guerillas in 1970s Britain.
It emerged in a society blighted by government cuts, high unemployment, austerity measures and deregulation, at a time of global political and cultural upheaval: riots and revolutions, the black-power and women’s lib movements, protests against the war in Vietnam.
Carrying out a series of bombings that targeted property rather than people, they attacked high-profile symbols of the “class enemy”: the embassies of far-right regimes, the homes of Conservative MPs, banks, police stations – even the BBC’s outside broadcast unit covering the Miss World pageant.
Blending fact and fiction, James Graham’s whip-smart comedy-thriller focuses on the opposing sides of the conflict.
In a basement office at Scotland Yard, four police officers are trying to work out who’s blowing up high-profile targets. In a filthy squat in north London, four young anarchists are plotting the revolution. But perspectives shift and change with unexpected outcomes.
Neither a history play nor a biopic, The Angry Brigade sheds light on our contemporary times, with many social, economic and political similarities between the two periods, and investigates the nature of protest and of political discontent.
