The 1982 revival
In contrast to the initial darker version of the play, Lamont Stewart’s rewrite for 7:84 at the Citizens Theatre paints more sunshine into the picture and it remains debatable which is the preferred draft.
Many critics of theatre have pointed to the lack of realism in the more positive ending of the 1982 version. However, modern mainstream audiences would find it hard to tolerate the unrelenting tragedy and hopelessness of the original.
The revived version was able to offer hope to the resilient Morrisons; by extension, the largely working-class 1982 audience would have seen hope in the play for themselves.
7:84 was a prominent theatre group with pronounced socialistSomeone who believes that society should be classless and that all property and wealth should be owned by the whole community and not by individuals. sympathies. They would stage plays that dramatized issues of poverty and social injustice.
Their name comes from a statistic published in The Economist in 1966 that stated that 84 per cent of British wealth was at the time in the hands of the seven wealthiest per cent of the population. The injustice of this statistic permeates the play.
