The Angry Brigade at 53two
Johnny James, Managing EditorBook now
The Angry Brigade
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1970s Britain. Unemployment is soaring. A Tory government is pushing through cuts. Bombs are detonating in British cities. James Graham’s The Angry Brigade rewinds the clock five decades, but its tensions feel far from resolved today.
Coming to 53two courtesy of HER Productions, this political thriller traces the real-life anarchist collective who declared they were fighting back against what they saw as a one-sided class war. Their targets were brazenly public – MPs, embassies, police, even the Miss World pageant. Homemade explosives and cryptic communiqués left the establishment scrambling, as a special police unit raced to identify the young urban guerrillas whose actions shocked the nation.
On one side, Special Branch officers try to decode radical theory and prevent further attacks. On the other, young radicals are convinced that conventional politics has failed and that direct action is the only way to force change. It’s not a simple cops-versus-criminals play, but a study in political conviction, state power and the human cost of pursuing a radical vision for a fairer world.
First staged in 2014, The Angry Brigade helped cement Graham’s reputation for dramatising recent history with forensic energy. Since then, he has become one of the UK’s most prominent playwrights, with works including This House and the Olivier Award-winning Dear England. His writing excels at threading big political questions through sharp character work – and here, the tension builds from more than ticking-clock suspense.
In the second half, we’re invited inside the Brigade itself. They’re no longer shadowy villains but politically driven ideals whose actions are born out of deep-seated – and disconcertingly reasonable – principles. The label “terrorist” starts to wobble. What emerges is something more unsettling: anger rooted in recognisable grievance, even if the methods remain explosive.
It’s that destabilising shift that gives the play its charge. By refusing easy binaries, Graham exposes the pressures on both sides – the fear inside the state, the fury outside it. In a moment so marked by inequality and political distrust, The Angry Brigade feels less like a period piece than a very relevant drama about what happens when belief in the system begins to fracture.
