Salford’s Working Class Movement Library is set to screen The Man With The Plan, a timely reflection on Britain’s welfare state, inequality and the search for a fairer future.
Simon Callow will play the lead role of William Beveridge, the British economist and Liberal politician who played a central role in designing the British welfare state in the new film created by award-winning director Christine Edzard.
From September 20, the film will be screened at independent cinemas, theatres, universities and community venues across the UK, prompting audiences to consider how the country’s social systems have changed since 1942 and why some challenges remain unresolved.
It will be shown at the Working-Class Movement Library on Wednesday 14 and Thursday 15 October.
The Man With The Plan’s eclectic cast includes Mark Thomas as The Narrator, Alan Cox as The Devil and Miriam Margolyes as the voice of Squalor.
It follows Flea, a young person of today played by screen newcomer Sophie Jenkin, who discovers William Beveridge’s post-war visionary plan for rebuilding Britain.
Through a series of imaginative encounters with the Five Giants and the Devil, dancing magpies, media sheep and Alice in Wonderland’s Dodo, Flea explores the political decisions, missed opportunities and social inequalities that have shaped Britain since the Report.
Beveridge and all the recognisable politicians throughout the film speak their own words, quoted from their speeches or writings during the film.
After meeting Beveridge himself, Flea returns to the present day to listen to leading academics and campaigners, including Professor Sir Michael Marmot, Kate Pickett, Danny Dorling and others whose work continues to address many of the inequalities Beveridge identified more than eighty years ago.
Blending fantasy, political satire, allegories and documentary, producers say The Man With The Plan offers a timely and much-needed reflection on Britain’s past, present and future, concluding with a hopeful call for collective action.
It has been billed as an ambitious and unapologetically campaign-focused film by an Oscar-nominated director with a provocative disregard for the usual conventions of commercial films.
More information is available here.
