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Play on Enoch Powell casts a long shadow

What Shadows
The Rep, Birmingham
4/5

THERE are moments during Chris Hannan’s new play when the audience could be forgiven for believing that they had wandered into a political version of Groundhog Day.

Roxanna Silbert’s production arrives at the Rep right on post-Brexit cue. Hannan focuses on that explosive moment in 1968 when Enoch Powell’s “rivers of blood” speech lit the fuse that resulted in mass demonstrations and marches against the influx of Asian immigrants. A class split in British society ensued.

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