William Fox

1815年、ヨーロッパ諸国を巻き込んだナポレオン戦争がようやく終結。英国は勝利したものの、経済が疲弊してちまたには失業者があふれ、民衆は貧困と飢餓にあえいでいた。選挙権を持たない彼らが、改革と自由を求めて抗議活動を活発化させる中、1819年夏、マンチェスターの広場で、著名な活動家のヘンリー・ハントも参加してデモ集会が開催されることに。しかし、そこに集結した6万人もの人々を武装兵たちが無慈悲に襲う。

TV Film adaptation of Victoria Wood's hit musical set in Manchester in 1929 and 1969. When middle aged loners Tubby and Enid attend a reunion of the choir in which they sang as children, the music evokes powerful memories, leading them to realise they still have a chance to find happiness.

Manfield, South Yorkshire, 1984. Out-of-work steelworker-turned- radical revolutionary Joe Starkhill and his band of comrades seize the Town Hall and take the Mayor, her driver, a security guard and a civil servant hostage - declaring the start of a socialist revolution in Britain. But when a faulty phone line prevents them from alerting the local newspaper and TV station, and the police write them off as a hoax, it is only when one of the hostages fails to return home for dinner, that the alarm is raised and Inspector John Machin is dispatched to the Town Hall to investigate - but it's not long before the building is surrounded by the press, police and public, turning Starkhill and the Revolutionaries into a media sensation.