Home / Series / The Wednesday Play / Aired Order / Season 5 / Episode 19

The Big Flame

Following the Devlin Report, a dispute about decasualisation in the Liverpool docks leads to a strike. Six weeks into the dispute, the Strike Committee reject the employers' demands for a return to work pending negotiations, and decide to escalate the industrial action into the political - the workers occupy the docks and commence to run the operation themselves. This occupation, though violently suppressed by the state and the owners, is nonetheless conceived as a gesture of possibility to the nation's workers; Jack Regan, the chief organiser of the occupation, envisages a "big flame" of political feeling igniting across the land.

English
  • Originally Aired February 19, 1969
  • Runtime 75 minutes
  • Network BBC One
  • Created July 22, 2017 by
    Administrator admin
  • Modified July 22, 2017 by
    Administrator admin
Name Type Role
Jim Allen Writer
Norman Rossington Guest Star
Godfrey Quigley Guest Star
Peter Kerrigan Guest Star
Ken Loach Director