Emily Ambrose, Fergus Rattigan, Arthur Hughes, Josh Merritt, Reece Pantry, Ruth Madeley, Nadeem ... [+] Islam, Philippa Cole - (C) Dragonfly Film Television Productions Ltd - Photographer: Samuel Dore


BBC/Dragonfly Film Television Productions Ltd/Samuel Dore


The BBC’s fact-based drama Then Barbara Met Alan is a story that reminds us that the gaining of civil rights is often not simply a product of passive political evolution but rather something that is painfully contested and driven through by force majeure at the grassroots.


Premiering on BBC 2 last night, the one-off hour-long film is a love story wrapped inside a political chronicle. It recounts the activism of the Direct Action Network (DAN) in Britain during the early 1990s and how a program of organized civil disobedience by hundreds of disabled Britons helped bring forth landmark legislation in the form of the 1995 Disability Discrimination Act.

The story is told through the prism of the romantic relationship between two of DAN’s leading lights - Barbara Lisicki played by Ruth Madeley and Alan Holdsworth portrayed by Arthur Hughes in his debut role as a leading man.


Co-produced by Dragonfly Films and Netflix, this bittersweet tale also prompts us to remember the unparalleled personal sacrifice that goes into fighting a just and noble crusade that's far bigger than oneself.





Rights NOT charity!


The story begins against the backdrop of Britain in the early 1990s, where, unlike their American cousins across the pond who had just witnessed the passing of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), disabled Britons enjoyed no civil rights as an identifiable minority group.


At this time, Lisicki and Holdsworth, two cabaret performers, the former being Britain’s first disabled female comedian and the latter a punk rocker going under the stage name Johnny Crescendo, meet at a gig.



Their romance blossomed, not just as a result of their energetic chemistry, but also due to their shared passion and belief that disabled people deserve to be treated as equal members of society.

Their campaign begins with localized acts of civil disobedience as wheelchair -bound protestors handcuff themselves to buses, block traffic in city centers and cry out through megaphones for fair and equal access to public transport.

The pair turn their attention to taking down the Telethon – an annual TV charity event in the U.K. at the time.

In one scene, Barbara colorfully describes the Telethon as “Twenty-eight hours of well-intentioned do-gooders dangling us poor crips in front of the nation’s bleeding hearts. Basically, 28 hours of hardcore inspiration porn.”

Concluding it to be, “Pity wrapped up in a nice pink bow.”

It became DAN’s avowed intention to “piss on pity” and so they did exactly that – forcing ITV to permanently discontinue the Telethon in 1992 after protests outside its London television studios during the event.





Ruth Madeley, Arthur Hughes - (C) Dragonfly Film Television Productions Ltd - Photographer: Samuel ... [+] Dore


BBC/Dragonfly Film Television Productions Ltd/Samuel Dore


In the next phase, the focus was to shift to Westminster and the Houses of Parliament to take on a cadre of Conservative MPs intent on using wrecking amendments to filibuster newly proposed disability rights legislation – arguing that it would place an unbearable financial burden on businesses and the taxpayer.

Throughout its running time, the film is interspersed with real-life footage of the protests with disabled demonstrators being dragged away by the authorities and people in wheelchairs lifted and loaded into the back of police vans.

The unerring chants of “We want what you got. We want what you got. CIVIL RIGHTS!” as police officers and members of the public awkwardly watch on sends a shiver down the spine.

Thanks to a somewhat uneasy alliance between MPs in support of the bill, the charity sector and DAN the DDA was eventually passed in November 1995.

In essence, it was viewed as fairly light-touch legislation but it did, for the first time, recognize disability discrimination as a point of law and codify civil rights.

It was to pave the way for more robust legislation that superseded it in the form of the 2010 Equality Act.

AS the end credits delightfully declare, the film is “Dedicated to the women and men of DAN who wanted to boldly go, where all others have gone before and to piss on pity.”




A triumph of inclusion

Then Barbara Met Alan was co-written by multi-BAFTA-winner Jack Thorne who has written for popular British TV shows Skins, Shameless, This is England and His Dark Materials and deaf actor turned writer Genevieve Barr.

Directed and co-directed by Bruce Goodison (Anne, Murdered By My Father) and Bafta-nominated Amit Sharma (Crip Tales) respectively, the show does an outstanding job when it comes to authentic disability representation.

Not only are Madeley, whose previous credits include Don’t Take my Baby and Years and Years, and Hughes (Help, The Innocents) authentically cast in the lead roles as disabled actors – the production hired a total of thirty cast and crew with disabilities.

In addition, a whole gang of the original DAN activists was used to film the protest scenes.

Speaking of her experience on the production, Madeley, who was born with spina bifida said, “The authenticity of the film is so clear.”

“That comes from hiring disabled actors to play disabled characters. This is what authenticity looks like. It's so powerful and you wouldn't get that if this drama had been done in a different way.”

Hughes added to this sense of legitimacy and belonging stating, “Sometimes, you don't know what a safe space is until you're in one. I never felt self-conscious. I felt at ease, and with the story we were telling, I felt more connected to my disability than ever before.”

It’s not just a matter of who has been chosen to tell this largely untold story - sadly, too often missing from the school curriculum, given that it raises issues that will affect so many people at some stage of their life, but also how it has been told.

Barbara, Alan and the members of DAN are feisty, pugnacious and see themselves, not as passive bystanders waiting for the political establishment to get its act together and come to their rescue, but as masters of their own destiny.

Above all else, they are inescapably human. This can be seen in the early scene where the disabled friends get together to “hate-watch” the Telethon and moments of poignant reflection are counterbalanced by humor, banter and taking the mickey out of each other.

The raw humanity is best exposed in the relationship between Barbara and Alan themselves who go on to have a child together but are driven apart by the strain of the endless campaigning and disagreements over the best strategy for attaining their goals.

“They were both very different people,” explained Hughes.

“Barbara a realist with a pragmatic approach of how to get things properly achieved, Alan was more of a dreamer and very into his emotions.”

On-screen, Barbara explains to the audience, “Sometimes, the battle is knowing when not to fight you know. We were great for the movement but not for each other.”

As inspiring as this film is, one of the core takeaways is the inescapable fact that many of the key issues DAN campaigned against such as inaccessible buildings, transport and housing, leaving aside the digital spaces brought about by the internet age that immediately followed the Disability Discrimination Act, remain issues to this day.

In this context, Alan’s words spoken in the lobby of the House of Commons immediately following the passing of the act seem entirely apt:

“Today is a day about history. What they have passed in there won’t be enough but it will be a start.”

In a world reeling from the devastating impact of a global pandemic that decimated elderly and disabled populations and unprecedented levels of geopolitical insecurity, the stakes have never been higher for disabled people.

Actress Liz Carr, an original member of DAN, who plays herself in the film explains this touchingly to Barbara during a moment of somber reflection between the two.

“It’s the drowning of the quiet that gets to me,” says Liz.

“The loud - they can just step out. Stick up for themselves. Refuse to let the lid close on them…But the quiet ones – how many times have they been told how they should live their lives and then done it because it’s their nature to be quiet?”

In Then Barbara Met Alan we have a timely reminder of the power of a collective voice and perhaps even a call to action for a new generation of disabled activists who, by now, should really have learned exactly what they need to do with pity.

Source: Forbes

Powered by NewsAPI.org