The lights dimmed at the MAC, the first notes of punk cut through the room, and Hassan Mahamdallie stepped onto the stage. What followed was not simply a return to the late 1970s, but a journey through memory, racism, resistance and the unfinished arguments of modern Britain.
I went to see Hassan Mahamdallie perform Punk Days at the MAC last night. First and foremost, I was taken aback by its quality – not because I had limited expectations, but because it was genuinely accomplished. In fact, flawless may be the best way to describe it. The writing was crisp and clear, while his performance was neither overdone nor understated. Knowing him personally and professionally in other capacities, watching him on stage was a revelation in many respects.
At its heart, the play focused on the period from 1976 to 1978 while also alluding to issues that remain with us today. Hassan led the one-man show, accompanied by a musician on bass guitar who also blended in excellent sound effects. Behind them, screens displayed skilfully produced graphics and images that carried the audience straight back to those moments. Hassan brought them vividly and passionately to life through his words, expressions, energy, movement and rhetoric. His deep-rooted sense of justice and fairness – something I know from his wider work – came through powerfully in the production.
I remember the late 1970s, the impact made by the Sex Pistols and, later, The Clash, and the wider idea of punk as a rebellion against conformity in post-war Britain. It was also a reaction to severe economic conditions: a financial crisis, an IMF loan and a government under Jim Callaghan that did not seem to be leading the country towards anything stable or coherent. The Winter of Discontent followed punk’s dramatic emergence in 1976, which itself preceded the Jubilee celebrations. These were years shaped by many conflicting forces and profound changes.
Beneath it all ran a persistent current of hatred towards minorities and people of colour, particularly Caribbean and South Asian communities. The National Front had a visible presence in many small towns and parts of large cities, shaping the lived experience of those who had arrived in the post-war era to fill gaps in the industrial sector. They had been invited through a process that reached out to the former colonies, yet their arrival exposed forms of hostility that transformed Britain in troubling ways.
The late 1970s came less than a decade after the speech that shook the nation: Enoch Powell’s 1968 “Rivers of Blood” address. Delivered by a highly intelligent racist, it helped mobilise a movement associated with “Paki-bashing”, the National Front and other neo-Nazi groups whose influence still lingers in different forms today. Even through my limited memories of that period, I recall how frightening it could be: seeing “NF” sprayed on walls and watching men in bomber jackets and tall Dr Martens march together through the inner-city streets where I lived alongside other people of colour and minorities who had arrived from former colonies. We were scared. We ran. We worried because the hostility was real.
The confrontations were real, too, involving Caribbean, Irish and white racist groups, as well as a growing number of South Asian street organisations, including the Lynx and the Panthers. Some took to the streets to protect their communities from outsiders who threatened violence.
The play was filled with punk music. I recognised one or two tracks, although much of it was highly specialised and beyond my own limited knowledge. Even so, the sound conveyed anger, defiance, resilience and a determination to bring about and embrace change. Punk was a distinctive scene, but it also intersected with ska. With its fusion of Jamaican and punk influences, ska became another important part of the resistance to racism and the mobilisation against it.
The play brought these parallels home through Hassan’s personal journey of social, political and cultural self-discovery. As a child of mixed-race heritage, with an English mother from London and a Muslim Caribbean father who was part of the Windrush generation, he was one of twelve children growing up in Wimbledon suburbia. He ultimately found a sense of self through punk music, punk rock and its activism, which was closely tied to anti-racism and Rock Against Racism. One of the most striking moments came when he recalled looking around at a Rock Against Racism concert and seeing a largely white audience. He realised that white people were not the problem, nor was whiteness itself. The issue was racism: the stupidity, intolerance, bigotry, reactionary dogma and hostility sustained by a lack of awareness and understanding, and embedded within institutions.
Much of what was happening in the late 1970s is reflected in the present, with the rise of fascism, populism and racism amid economic precarity and inequality. At the time, these conditions contributed to the Conservative Party’s victory in 1979 and everything that followed: neoliberalism, deregulation, deindustrialisation and continuing instability. Their longer-term consequences include financial crises, austerity, Brexit and today’s political climate, in which Reform UK and other parties remain fixated on identity politics, culture wars and hostility towards people of colour and diversity in Britain.
The performance stirred many different emotions and responses, and I enjoyed it immensely. It was one of those rare experiences that leaves you sitting quietly as the final scene unfolds, with thoughts that continue to linger the morning after the night before.
When the lights came up at the MAC, the stage was empty, but the questions raised by Punk Days remained. The performance had taken us back to an earlier Britain only to return us, with greater clarity, to the country we are living in now.