Jim Allen Talks to Socialist Organisel 'councillors M Get Out of Ther Talking Shop'

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of whether the working class can politicise the CND"

REACTIONS in the mass media to the play United Kingdom ranged from 'How civilised we are to show it' ', to 'Of course the author halls from Liverpool', as if this explained

the aberration that filled bilt the viewers' screens.

However, Jm Allen 1s from Manchester, not that it makes any difference, and has worked in the longclosed Bradford pit and Salford docks.

I asked him: what sort of reaction have you had from working people, including those in the labour movement?

JIM ALLEN: To generalise, it's been one of surprise that their own strength is possible - a very healthy reaction.

People who have no political background, no political history, have said, 'Yes, this is the way things could go' As far as Labour people are concerned, the activists, there has been general enthusiasm, but I have not yet had any detailed disc. ussions with [for example] councillors who might be prepared to take that kind of action.

JD: Yes. This is the objective problem. Neither councils nor trade unions have been prepared to go the whole way, and tew tenants' organisations are prepared to link up their struggles with those going on in the Town Halls like the one in the play.

JA: Without mobilising and bringing together these vital elements, there can be no fight. There is no way councillors can fight this government in isolation, because the government has changed the rules. impose penalties on indiv- The government can idual councillors like personal bankruptcy and literally being removed, thrown off the council.

It all needs to be cemented by a 'council of action' type organisation, involving tenants' groups, trade union rank and file, CLPs, etc, and they must demand the leadership of the Labour Party be campaigning and mobilising up and down the country, not just moving motions of no confidence and wringing their hands every time they lose in the Commons.

They've got to get out of their talking shop, spelling out what this government has done.

JD: The play itself involved workers in its production -for example, camera operators, local people, people who have a record of struggle. What sort of working relationship did you all have? Did you come along with a script, discuss it, work out the action...

Showdown

JA: To go back to the beginning: about two years ago 1 put forward the idea to the producer, Ken Trodd, and the director, Roland Jaffe, that the government was heading for a showdown with local goyernment - how else could it impose its cuts?

They accepted this analysis and commissioned me to write the play. It's then down to the director and tn thn dirontor and producer to select, for instance, a camera operator who is prepared to stand in the pissing rain on a bleak northern council estate, somebody with a good enough political eye or ear which will pick up things.

Now, assembling that team is a political decision, taken by the producer and director - that's their end of the business. Likewise the workers who appear as workers in plays must have an Equity card.

Ricky : Tomlinson, after that business at Shrewsbury, consequent imprisonment and blacklisting, became a club artist, which meant he joined the Variety Federation, which has dual membership with Equity. Val, who played Kath, was a former member of Tyneside Live Theatre - so every part of the jigsaw is very carefully selected.

The technique or style is 80% script, 20% ad lib. 20% is quite a big chunk - you've got to have it, though. It's like a political meeting, you've got to have people fight for their lines...

JD: The style of the police chief, for instance - his relationship with the press, his night out at an Elizabethan banquet - was clearly counterposed to the style of the Action Committee, their night out in their club...

JA: I like to feel I'm using the tools of dialectic. 117hnn nuttino a Dlav together, you generalise, then you particularise the various nuances.

For the same reason I feel it would have been wrong for me to make the personality or the character of the chief constable hateful. He was a highly intelligent, articulate man, whose rationality was in support of the system -therefore he was much more lethal.

understand ally naive about these class conflicts and about what tried to set up a prod ion about the Easter Ris Do you still think you'r chance of seeing it made JA: I don't know. I di film script which took the Black and Tan per after the Rising, and beginning of the civil we Ken Loach and 1 Garnett tried to get ance, but there was no they could get it, and i three years - no. It's in the drawer and now again we still look at i any class content.

If I was to go bac that script, I would res it to bring • in other po One of the most impor things about the Irish I lution, which is r mentioned, is how the 1 less seized the land how the Griffith/Cc faction in one incident Free State troops wol with Black and Tan arrest farm labourer Wexford.

Here you get the class question, with native Irish bourge and that's a vital that's got to come oul be integrated in a fil if we ever get the cash. JD: What are your f plans?

Unilateralism JA: I've written a fil ATV about unilater It's about a group of committed actors whi a northern working estate with a CND pla They attempt to g people on the estate t part in the play - :

the interaction be middle class intelle and workers who up politicising the ectuals. They say un alism is an abstract demic question. Uni relate it to jobs, an struggles, it's meani - asking us to sig tions...

JD: Which class d who?

JA: That's right.

question of whethr working class can po CND, and in the pli workers politicise tb activists.

So that's the project for next ye