There is a Light That Never Goes Out: Scenes from the Luddite Rebellion
Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester
★★★★★

Apparently we are in the midst of the second industrial revolution. If last week’s report into Manchester’s booming textile trade is accurate, then Yeatman and Mooney’s fabulous play is very timely.

The report highlighted a booming sweatshop industry where workers are forced into long hours, paid well below the minimum wage and non-existent health and safety.

Jump back 200 years to a similar picture faced by weavers with the introduction of automated looms.

The result then, as now, was that the rich got richer and workers got poorer.

With tough anti-trade union laws in force, weavers set about what Eric Hobsbawn described as “collective bargaining by riot.”

There is a Light is not only an excellent play, it is a homage to the bravery of working people striving to fight back against aggressive mill owners and a pernicious Tory government.

This is a wonderful, thoughtful play, beautifully performed by a fine cast which breathes new life into an important, yet often overlooked part of working-class history.

The story is set in Manchester and weaves actual first-hand accounts and documents from the time into a fine script which links the past with the present.

With a marvellous cast and Yeatman’s excellent direction, the story is brought to life with great imagination, creativity and vigour.

Peter Malkin’s amazing, evocative and, at times, downright disturbing soundscape creates a frightening picture of early factory life. But above all else the play reclaims the real history of the Luddite movement.

Anyone wondering why the benefits from new technology pass to the bosses is often labelled a Luddite, someone opposed to progress.

But the reality was that the Luddites never opposed progress — they merely wanted some of the benefits. Progress that leaves thousands of workers destitute and unemployed isn’t progress.

Two-hundred years have passed and workers’ rights may have improved but if we are to resist the mounting attacks on those rights and fight for a fairer share of the benefits in technological progress, we all need to find our inner Luddite and quickly.

Runs until August 10. Box office: royalexchange.co.uk.