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Dramatists in Residence
In the years following the Second World War, Merseyside Unity found itself in the unusual position of having not one but two resident dramatists—both named Leonard. Over the next fifteen years, Leonard Peck and Leonard Irwin brought eight original plays to the stage. Their work tackled urgent and often controversial subjects, from American military bases and McCarthyism in England to the lingering shadow of Fascism in post-war Germany. While their writing remained within the theatrical styles of the time, they nonetheless explored themes that few English playwrights were addressing. Looking back in 1971, Dawson reflected in a letter to Peck that they had simply been “too early in the field” to reap the recognition later enjoyed by writers like Osborne and Wesker.
Leonard Peck arrived in Liverpool during the first year of the war, already having written Means Test Trifle for the Left Book Club Theatre Guild. His early work Green and Pleasant Land—about the Chartists—was read by Merseyside Unity but deemed too ambitious to stage. His first full production, The Townshends (1948), offered a critical look at the so-called “good old days” of 1913 following a family struggling to overcome the degrading effects of poverty. This was followed by The Invisible Law (1949), a drama set in the workplace that examined victimisation in industry. At its centre is Bob Kempton, labelled a trouble-maker for challenging management, and Davies, a principled General Manager who refuses to blacklist him, setting up a powerful clash between conscience and authority in which Davies, with his unshakeable beliefs ‘scorns the slings and arrows of threat and abuse.’
Peck soon expanded his focus beyond Britain. The Traitors (1952) explored the uneasy fate of former resistance fighters in Eastern Europe, now viewed with suspicion by new regimes. In The Shadow of the Swastika (1954), a gripping political thriller, he tackled the threat of neo-Nazism in post-war Germany. The play’s programme emphasised just how topical it felt:
When we gave it our first reading towards the end of last season, we realised that the play would still be topical after the summer break. But we did not see how opportune the play would be. The French rejection of E.D.C., the attempted ban on the publication of Lord Russell of Liverpool’s book, The Scourge of the Swastika, the arrogance of Adenauer and the insolence of Dulles, the dithering of Eden, the debates within the labour movement have all contributed to make this the most topical play we have ever produced.
His final play for Merseyside Unity, The Big Screen (1958), drew more directly on personal experience. Peck himself had been suspended from his Civil Service job after refusing to answer questions about his political views. The play reflects these anxieties through the story of Arthur Allen, whose involvement in invasive security checks linked to his H-bomb research leads to devastating consequences—including a suicide and the breakdown of his marriage…
Alongside Peck, Leonard Irwin brought a distinctive topical voice. His first play, The Land of the Living, travelled widely after its Liverpool reading—reaching Manchester Library Theatre, being broadcast on the BBC, and earning him an Atlantic Award.
Merseyside Unity premiered his next three works. The Circling Dove (1950) is set in an overstretched hospital and vividly captures the pressures facing the early NHS. At its heart is an exhausted matron pushed to the limit—until a visiting Colonel’s demand for military beds in the event of a new war forces her to take a stand. What unfolds is a story of resistance. The Colonel, acting under government orders, will brook no opposition and demands her resignation. News spills out – there is protest by patients and the Colonel, fearing secret plans will become public is forced to withdraw, deciding the hospital is no longer suitable. When the play reached London audiences that June, its themes felt strikingly real—especially as news of the Korean War broke, bringing its warnings uncomfortably close to home.
In contrast, The Wages of Eve (1952) takes a lighter tone while addressing a serious issue: equal pay. Eve Tattersall has been chargehand in a Burnesworth factory for 15 months and now she wants a man’s pay for a man’s work. Inevitably, plenty of arguments are raised against her, both in the factory and at home, and while there is no neat and victorious ending for Eve, her fight is, as she says at the end of the play, a start.
Irwin’s final Merseyside play, Enter Guests Armed (1955), turns to the growing tensions between Britain and the United States in the post-war years - tensions developing from who America would allow into the country and from the presence of US bases in the English countryside. When the daughter of a Labour Alderman (in the running for the mayoralty of a small provincial town) gets engaged to a US Air Force Corporal and wants to move to America, the Americans start to investigate her background, fearful of importing people who are ‘politically infected’. At the same time, the Alderman’s mother is refusing to move out of her cottage, blocking the route for the new runway for the American base. Called on to make a pro-American speech to show that he is not a political problem, the Alderman wakes up to his forgotten, youthful radicalism and refuses.
Together, Peck and Irwin created a body of work that was bold, politically engaged, and ahead of its time—bringing questions to local stages and giving Merseyside Unity a distinctive and ambitious voice in post-war British theatre.
