Can it be true that Keith Allen starred in a film about the Tolpuddle Martyrs? Keith Allen? The one who is more famous for getting wasted at the Groucho Club and fathering Lily Allen than any actual "work"? Those with long memories will remember Allen in the mid-80s as a key member of the Comic Strip Presents... team, writing and starring in such epics as The Bullshitters and The Yob. At exactly the same time, he was picked by erratic Scots genius Bill Douglas to appear in his three-hour epic, Comrades, one of the great "lost" films in British cinema history.
Fortunately, though, Comrades is no longer lost. Having seen it when it came out in 1986 while a student at Edinburgh University, I am pleased to report that exactly the same venue hosted a screening at the film festival last Monday (June 22), prior to a reissue and DVD premiere. Douglas has been getting some well overdue love from his original backers, the BFI (last year they released his short film trilogy on DVD) but Comrades, his only feature film, virtually vanished off the map after its initial video release.
And what an extraordinary film it is too. The list of serious films about the history of British radical politics is not long – frankly, Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo's Winstanley is the only one I can think of. But shortly after the bitter defeat of the miners' strike in 1985, Douglas chose to make a film extolling the very founding myth of British trade unionism. But you could hardly call Comrades social realism, despite the painfully scrupulous accuracy of the design, costume and locations. Long takes, disjointed scenes and elusive meanings all coalesce to form a film that somehow manages to be both eminently watchable and tremendously demanding. Douglas makes it clear how religion played a part: the enthusiastic radicalism of dissenters, and the reactionary instinct of the established church.
As well as Allen, well-known names like Vanessa Redgrave, Imelda Staunton and Michael Hordern play their part, but the real star, playing the Martyrs' leader, is an actor called Robin Soans. If there was any justice, Soans's powerful, engaging performance would have made him one of the country's major actors, but it never really worked out like that, and he came to concentrate on playwrighting instead. Let's hope he gets his acting dues now.
