Please continue to respect all commenters and create constructive debates. But such cavils are quickly swept aside by the propulsion of a play – since revived in Nottingham and Newcastle – that is poised to endure as a “portrait of a country in crisis” when that phrase, amazingly, wasn't a daily reference to where we are at right now. While the studio system is still undoubtedly prevalent, the programming of ambitious new plays by David Eldridge at the Globe, James Graham at the National Theatre and, now, Beth Steel on the Main Stage at the Hampstead Theatre suggests there may be room for cautious optimism. These sworn ideological enemies and the two main protagonists in the struggle are off-stage presences in Steel's play. Edward Hall's production is involving, and emotionally devastating, Find your bookmarks in your Independent Premium section, under my profile. For further information and tickets see the Hampstead Theatre website. An able and agile cast includes some, like the astonishing David Moorst (pictured above), who graduated to prizes of their own: Moorst received his own Evening Standard Award the year after Steel and here plays an open-faced, begrimed 16-year-old making his embryonic way in the mines only to come up against a landscape of strikes and scabs. Wonderland, Hampstead Theatre, review: 'Moving and timely' Paul Taylor, 2 July, 2014; Daily Mail. You come to realise that Steel is locating in this symbolic moment of defeat the start of the steady erosion of workers' rights that has resulted in the current culture of zero-hour contracts. You can also choose to be emailed when someone replies to your comment. It’s a textbook marriage of the personal and the political which could play out like a dreary history lesson, but Steel’s play has plenty of feeling and intrigue to lift it beyond the level of tatty textbook triviality. He is currently enrolled on Royal Holloway’s MA Playwriting course. It allows our most engaged readers to debate the big issues, share their own experiences, discuss real-world solutions, and more. Are you sure you want to delete this comment? Photo ©Alastair Muir. In a blistering opening sequence, with choreography by Scott Ambler, two young  apprentices (David Moorst and Ben-Ryan Davies) don hard hats and bound down the pit. That said, this is a play of admirable ambition and it’s encouraging to see Edward Hall having the confidence to hand his main space over to a young writer of undoubted promise. The most insightful comments on all subjects will be published daily in dedicated articles. In Beth Steel’s Wonderland they have a massive one. For Edward Hall's exceptionally involving – and, by the end, emotionally devastating – production, Hampstead Theatre has been reconfigured in the round with a spectacular environmental set from Ashley Martin-Davis that's dominated by a mighty pit shaft and a cage lift. Designer Ashley Martin-Davis has re-configured the Hampstead Theatre into a towering coalmine, stationing the audience in the round, with the lighting rig and ladders of the theatre becoming the pulleys and mechanics of the pit. In comparison, Steel paints the key government figures plotting anti-Scargill strategy with much broader strokes. Wonderland, Hampstead Theatre, review: 'Moving and timely' Edward Hall's production is involving, and emotionally devastating. Wonderland is available to view on Hampstead Theatre’s YouTube channel from 6 th April until 12 th April … Music and movement are interwoven into the bustling fabric of a production that finds everyone working at full tilt: how moving, too, to be reminded of the work of Scott Ambler, the dancer-turned-choreographer who died in 2018. Wednesday 02 July 2014 17:12. Sure, there are moments where some of the place-setting lands with a thud, especially amongst the overlords, as it were, who busily explain to one another who they are. Independent Premium Comments can be posted by members of our membership scheme, Independent Premium. Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Edward Hall, the director, cut his teeth on many a testosterone-charged Shakespeare for his much-missed Propeller Theatre, and Hall locates in Steel’s layering of class and social tensions a similar ability to pivot on a dime from ribald comedy to spasms of violence that leave physical and psychic carnage in their wake. Start your Independent Premium subscription today. We follow two 16 year old lads (Ben-Ryan Davies and David Moorst) as they start on their first day in this Midlands mine and are gradually initiated into a subterranean world of sweat-lathered men grafting in Y-fronts, bawdy humour, explosions, collapsing roofs, communal singing, pride in family tradition, and the close cameraderie that's vital in such dangerous work. He is quoted in the publicity as saying that “Beth Steel, in a commanding Main Stage debut, illuminates corners of a story you think you know but don't”. And what a pleasure it is to be reacquainted with the muscular drama – the author’s second-ever play – that brought Steel a 2014 Evening Standard Theatre Award for Most Promising Playwright. His most recent play, Long Story Short, was recently produced at the Pleasance Islington. Edward Hall’s production revels in showing the men at work, with many of his 12-strong all-male company clad in boots and vests, their arms smeared with grubby boot polish, humming out the miners’ working songs with deep baritone intensity. As a theatre critic Adam has written for various publications, winning the Theatre Record Award for theatre criticism at this year’s National Student Drama Festival. Want an ad-free experience?Subscribe to Independent Premium. The daughter of a Nottinghamshire miner, Steel has written an all-male "work play" that couples a vivid look at life in the waning days of the pits with the machinations above ground – political, economic, journalistic – that fuelled the miners’ strike as viewed as filtered through Steel's own perspective 30 years on. A story in which one miner (Gunnar Cauthery)  – with barely two pennies to rub together – is forced to kill his pet dog as he can no longer afford the food with which to feed it is a heartfelt articulation of the profound  personal pressures of the period. Wonderland, Hampstead Theatre . Review: Wonderland, Hampstead Theatre Adam Foster July 3, 2014 Off West End Reviews 223 views ‘Where are all the big plays?’ asked the Monsterists back in … Paul Taylor. The press night had to be delayed to “ensure the safety of the cast” which sounds dramatic, but when you see the hydraulic grid iron floor and the three-storey high overhead gantries you have to feel for those tasked with putting together the risk assessment. Those above ground, as it were, include onetime Propeller regular Dugald Bruce-Lockhart as David Hart, the fey Claridge's-dwelling Thatcherite, and Andrew Readman as the American economist Milton Friedman, who plunges us from the start into an anxiety-laden rhetoric sure to resonate today in different ways. Plenty of noise too. 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