Film, Drama and the Break-Up of Britain

By Steve Blandford

Intellect Ltd

Copyright © 2007 Intellect Ltd
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-84150-150-5

Contents

Acknowledgements, 6,
Chapter 1 Introduction, 7,
Chapter 2 Last Orders in Wonderland: England and Cinema, 19,
Chapter 3 Beyond 'Priests, Pigs and Poverty': Ireland and Cinema, 47,
Chapter 4 'We Can't Even Pick a Decent Country to be Colonised By': Scotland and Cinema, 65,
Chapter 5 'A Beautiful Mistake': Wales and Cinema, 87,
Chapter 6 'An Evaporation of Certainty': England and Theatre, 105,
Chapter 7 'Protestants Don't Write Plays, You See': Ireland and Theatre, 125,
Chapter 8 No More 'Cultural Cringe': Scotland and Theatre, 145,
Chapter 9 Behind 'the Façade of Cool Cymru': Wales and Theatre, 163,
Bibliography, 181,
Index, 191,

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

As I am sure will be clear to many, the title of this book makes direct reference to Tom Nairn's highly influential The Break-Up of Britain: Crisis and Neo-nationalism (1977). Nairn's book predicted, rather too prematurely as it turned out, the end of Britain via the aspirations to independence of Scotland and Wales, and his work has become a key reference point for those seeking to re-examine the future of 'Britain' both as an idea and a political reality since the devolution of power to the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly in the late 1990s.

The aim of this book is more modest than Nairn's and those of the other historians and social scientists that have followed him in attempting to understand and predict the shape of Britain's constitutional future. It essentially sets out to trace and examine some of the ways that film and theatre in this country have begun to reflect and contribute to a Britain that is changing so rapidly in its sense of itself that, many would argue, it amounts to a break-up of the very idea of there being a meaningful British identity at all.

Working in Wales during the 1990s clearly offered the opportunity to experience at close quarters both the political climate that led to devolution and the work of those working in film and drama in Wales, who were responding to the changing sense of the nation that such a climate was producing. However, it quickly becomes obvious to anyone that considers the question that devolution for Scotland and Wales is only one, albeit important, dimension to the notion that the 'idea' of Britain is 'breaking up'. It is arguable, of course, whether a truly cohesive idea of Britain ever existed at all, but the last two decades have brought open debate over the fractured nature of modern British identity much more firmly into the realm of popular consciousness. Whilst devolution for Scotland and Wales has been one powerful factor in this profound and important change in the way that the British think of themselves, there are many others, and I would like to start by briefly discussing those that appear to have been the most significant for British dramatic and cinematic culture during this time.

To begin with the most obvious, the Peace Process in Ireland has radically altered, yet again, the relationship between the UK and the Republic and of course the political status of the north of Ireland. The Good Friday agreement's plans for newly devolved powers, inter-governmental committees and power-sharing arrangements, though they have been fraught with practical difficulty, have radically altered the sense of the role of all parts of Ireland in the future of British identity. This in turn has to be seen in the context of the emergence of the 'Celtic Tiger' economy in the Republic with all the consequent shifts in the way that 'Irish' identity as a generality is viewed by the British. For this book, this has meant that consideration has had to be given to cinema and theatre with roots on both sides of the Irish border in order to properly tackle the complexities of their contributions to the overall question of British national identity itself.

In more modest ways the post-1997 New Labour government has also sought to extend the idea of political devolution to parts of England through the concepts of regional assemblies and elected mayors. Even though this has had mixed success, to say the least, the very act of introducing the idea has refreshed the concept of regional and, indeed, English identity to the point of spawning a rash of publications on the subject including those with a populist bent such as Jeremy Paxman's The English (1998).

It is also not entirely true that there is no appetite for any form of English regional devolution. In London, for example, Ken Livingstone has remerged as a political figure of some force and influence through his role as mayor, whilst under his influence London has pursued transport, culture and infrastructural policies that declare the independence of its thinking from the rest of the UK. By 2005, twelve other British towns and cities had also opted to choose a mayor through direct elections. Though this has to be weighed against the huge majority against the idea of a North-East regional assembly in the 2004 referendum, there is evidence through a wide variety of campaign groups that devolution in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland has raised profound questions in the minds of many about the future constitutional status of England.

This book argues that in turn this has been reflected in a previously non-existent interest in the idea of there being a distinctively English cinema and theatre culture. It is by no means clear that such a thing yet exists, but in both art forms there has emerged work that raises questions about the idea of an enduring England and, more commonly, of a Britain within which England and the metropolis at its centre automatically hold sway.

On a much larger scale, the expansion of the EU and the endless conversation around Britain's relationship to the rest of Europe have become ever more significant influences on any primitive sense of an older British identity that was forged out of a sense of isolation and an island fortress imagination. Such influences, of course, have to compete both with the fluctuating status of this country's relationship with the United States, an issue that has, of course, taken on a much sharper focus during recent years, and the overwhelming sense of the end of empire given public expression through such public acts as the handing over of Hong Kong to China in 1997

In the last decade the influence of the EU on British national identity has proved to be extremely complex and needs to be seen in the context of a resurgence of nationalism across Europe that has taken many forms. As a French commentator in 1999 spelt out, what might be termed the devolutionary spirit has by no means been confined to Britain:

Although nationalism was discredited by the appalling slaughter that took place in Europe in the course of two world wars, attachment to the nation is making a powerful comeback. The up-surge of micro-nationalisms within established nation-states of Western Europe probably reflects a belief that reconstituting the state on the basis of a more 'authentic' nation will better protect the rights and interests of citizens - especially where the territory of the would-be nation has strong economic potential. (Thiesse 1996)

If one corollary of the spread of the EU is the resurgence of the nation state in Europe, then it is ironic how often the artists of the resurgent British nations help to define themselves by referring to the 'European' nature of their work. Again and again it is possible to find writers and film-makers from Scotland and Wales seeking to distance themselves from a 'British' identity by locating their work in what they see as a European context. This is partly, of course, in order to be rid of the situation that compels identity to be defined in opposition to England and emerges as possibly the most clearly defined way in which membership of the EU is reflected in the way that artists have dealt with national identity.

This latter tendency is perhaps most visible in the way that theatre-makers have worked in traditions that are in opposition to the dominant British literary tradition. The last two decades in particular have seen a spectacular growth in British theatre companies that have drawn on physical performance traditions, which whilst not exclusively European (there has also been an enormous growth in the influence of work from the Far East and Africa), tend to draw on the work of practitioners with their roots in mainland Europe. In film as well there has been a strong tendency for younger independent film-makers to look to smaller European film cultures for inspiration, something which is discussed particularly in this volume's chapter on Scottish film.

Ironically, of course, such developments take place against the backdrop of what is popularly perceived as an enduring British suspicion of all things 'European' and, in particular, all things connected to the EU. This tension can be seen to typify one of the functions of art in the continuing process of the imagining of national and other identities. Work for theatre and film that reads against the grain of what is seen (often through the vested interests of sections of the media) as popular opinion becomes part of the process of suggesting hybrid identities, something which is of particular relevance and importance at a time of particularly marked changes to British identity itself.

Perhaps even more directly apparent, at least in the last five years, is the way that dramatic fictions have dealt with the increasingly contentious relationship between Britain and the United States and its ramifications for national identity. This has been at its clearest in work that has dealt not only with the Iraq war itself (such as David Hare's Stuff Happens for the Royal National Theatre in 2004), but also with the perceived identity of Britain, inextricably linked now to the United States in the wider Islamic world.

Finally, of course (and linked in some respects to the issue of Britain's alliance with the United States), there is the highly topical question of the impact on British identity of its highly diverse ethnic populations. It would be foolish to think of this as a 'new' question - much of Britain's cultural strength and energy have always come from successive waves of immigration. However, there are strong arguments for suggesting that the current situation is of a different order. Just as devolution has come as the natural expression of a desire to more accurately reflect the genuine diversity of Britain, so too has there been more confident assertions of difference from second and third generations of British families who originally emigrated to Britain. Alongside these questions with a direct relationship to Britain's colonial past, the reconfiguration of Europe continues to broaden the range of both those who are able to live and work in Britain as of right and those who must seek to negotiate an ever more labyrinthine asylum and refugee process.

These welcome additions to the already highly diverse ways in which it is possible to be British have, of course, often been caught up in the ugly politics of nationalism and other kinds of cultural identity. From irresponsible politicians seeking to make cheap electoral capital out of irrational fears of asylum seekers, to the horrifying reminders in July 2005 of the way that disaffection with mainstream British identity can be exploited to deadly effect, there are endless ways in which xenophobia can be fostered and the desire for a return to an essentialist notion of what it is to be British kindled in the unsuspecting. The much parodied 'cricket test' first proposed by Norman Tebbitt in the 1980s has now become the citizenship test that we must take more seriously as it appears to be government policy rather than the mere musings of a notorious xenophobe.

On the positive side, the last ten years have seen the rise of a large number of black and Asian artists working in both film and theatre, though, as the book discusses there remain serious inequalities with respect to positions of real power in both industries. However, there has undoubtedly been a great deal of recent work emerging from all the British nations and by artists from a variety of backgrounds that seeks to explore in positive ways the complex questions of identity that arise from Britain's changing ethnic mix. As was acknowledged above this is not a new question, but perhaps one given sharper focus by the changing face of world politics and to some extent by the changing internal politics of the United Kingdom. In 2004, an article in The Guardian discussed a 'museum for migrants' though it concluded that

Maybe we need more than a museum - we need a redefinition of what the words British and immigrants mean. We look back at those once unwelcome migrants - the Romans, Norse and Anglo-Saxons to define what the first Britain was. Only when we weave in the French, the forgotten Dutch, the Germans, the Jews, the Irish, the Indians, the AfroCaribbeans, the Chinese, the Turks, the Russians, the Africans and everyone right down to the last Albanian who came to Britain clinging to the undercarriage of a Eurostar train, will we see the carpet of many colours that a New Britain will become. (Gibbons 2003 a.)

In all the chapters of this volume, work is discussed that either attempts to imagine what such a new British or Irish or Scottish or Welsh identity might become, or, at least, raises the difficult questions that take such a debate forward. Arguably, this is the most important sense in which an older idea of Britain needs to be dismantled forever, and it is partly the role of artists to produce work that assists in such a process.

Inevitably one of the key critical frameworks for this discussion has tended to be the complex and often problematic way in which postcolonial criticism has been applied to Britain's internal 'colonies'. The last ten years especially have seen a number of attempts to raise questions about the usefulness, or otherwise, of the considerable body of work grouped under the banner of postcolonial studies to an internal British context.

In turn there has been a much broader movement within film, theatre and performance studies that has seen a fundamental shift in the dominant critical tendency towards (some would say 'back towards') the specificity of contexts for the production of works of art. This has resulted in, among many other things, a resurgent interest in the idea of national cinemas and theatres. As Mette Hjort and Scott Mackenzie put it:

More specifically, the influential critical vocabulary associated with deconstruction and psychoanalytic semiology must compete with a new set of terms: 'hybridity', 'multiculturalism', 'transnationalism', 'nationalism', 'internationalism', 'globalisation', 'cosmopolitanism', 'exile', 'postcolonialism', to mention but some of the salient terms.' (Hjort and Mackenzie 2000: 1)

To a large extent, this loose summary of the 'critical vocabulary' that has dominated recent critical discussion of the national in relation to forms of cultural production is also a summary of the conceptual framework within which this discussion of the 'break-up' of Britain takes place. Just as the framework has been used globally in order to raise questions about the idea of the nation and its relationship to art and culture, here it is used in the micro context of Britain in order to examine the ways that film and theatre in the four British nations have responded to the idea of a much more ambiguous sense of a British nation.

In many ways it has been surprising to see, during the course of writing the book, the extent to which the idea of Britain in the discourse surrounding the nation in relation to cinema and theatre has remained unproblematic. In a critical world in which the concepts outlined above by Hjort and Mackenzie have been prominent for the best part of two decades, it is only relatively recently that the idea of a monolithic 'British' cinema or theatre has been rendered profoundly problematic. To take just one example, one had to wait until the second edition of Robert Murphy's influential The British Cinema Book before the inclusion of Martin McLoone's very useful chapter entitled 'Internal Decolonisation? British Cinema in the Celtic Fringe' which ends with the following assertion:

The re-imagining that is taking place in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland involves a reworking of national or regional tropes and stereotypes. If many of these are the inventions of the metropolitan centre, nevertheless, their reinterpretation impacts on a concept of Britishness, which is already under pressure. The multicultural nature of English society has begun to erase singular definitions of national identity and British cinema has begun to explore the bewildering concatenation of local, regional, national, ethnic and racial identities. Film-making in Britain's Celtic periphery suggests that a process of internal decolonisation is well underway and that peripherality has moved towards the cutting edge of contemporary debate. (McLoone 2001: 190)

McLoone's very welcome intervention in the context of a widely circulated and influential collection remains, nevertheless, a comparatively rare example of work that applies such conceptual frameworks across the British nations. Whilst there is excellent work, to differing extents, on national cinemas in Scotland and Ireland in particular (McLoone 2000 and Petrie 2000), there has been, to date, little work that looks comparatively at all four nations, and almost nothing on the idea of England and cinema.

In the field of theatre and performance Jen Harvie's recent book Staging the UK is an excellent attempt to apply some of the thinking around the idea of the nation to its 'performance', particularly in relation to some examples of difference between the UK's constituent nations. Harvie's work does not attempt to be comprehensive in its coverage of contemporary practices, but rather uses tightly focused case studies in order to explore what she sees as highly distinctive practices that have recently emerged. In setting out her own critical framework, Harvie asserts the centrality of Benedict Anderson (and those that have developed his work) to both her own ideas and to most recent work on the relationships between cultural practices and identity:

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