The way
Nostalgia is the enemy. Well, nostalgia and also the English, capitalism, Mrs Thatcher, the police, the English, the middle class swingers, the Freemasons, the immigration officials and did I mention the English?
Actor-director Michael Sheen’s saliva-spattered revolutionary rant, The Way (BBC1), began in incoherent fury and became increasingly unhinged. These three hours spent exposing England’s oppression of the Welsh ultimately ended in a mess of disconnected scenes.
Accusing Sheen of losing the plot would be unfair, because he was not in control from the beginning. The story follows a warring family, the Driscolls, caught up in a protest march in their hometown of Port Talbot that turns into a riot and then a civil war.
Squads of security thugs armed with assault rifles are sent in, followed by the army with helicopters. With a bounty on their heads, the Driscolls flee, first on foot, then in the back of a truck, on a barge, and hidden in coffins.
Scene from BBC’s The Way, directed by Michael Sheen
Sheen’s influence as a respected actor is the only reason this nonsense was filmed. Sophie Melville on The Road
They are constantly dodging the English fascist vigilantes, brandishing the Cross of St. George. “We’ve seen a lot of these disease-ridden Welshmen cross the border,” says one.
Eventually, the family reaches the south coast and crosses the Channel in a boat to escape “Hell Island.”
Dad Geoff drowns, sacrificing himself in an act of redemption, because he failed to live up to the leftist ideals of his father, Denny (the ghost of Saint Denny is played, of course, by Sheen himself).
But Owen, Geoff’s addict son, decides not to go and magically returns to Port Talbot to begin a new life of peace and harmony. The end.
Neither scene made any kind of narrative sense. Dozens of Welsh refugees in a slum, living under tarps, suddenly produced pristine red-hooded cloaks as identical costumes.
Actor-director Michael Sheen’s (pictured) breakthrough rant, The Way (BBC1), began with incoherent fury.
Sheen, a Welsh nationalist, also plays a trade unionist in the series.
Owen’s Eastern European girlfriend, Anna, underwent a complete personality transplant, going from a fierce freedom fighter to a goofy, doe-eyed girlfriend clinging to his arm.
Strangest of all, the final episode began last night with an excruciating wife-swapping scene, with the Driscolls peering through the patio doors at a chick fighting with the neighbors.
Running through this nonsense was Sheen’s hatred of English nostalgia.
Fragments of 20th-century images crackled across the screen: an extract from Carry On, a flash of Benny Hill, the cast of Dad’s Army, images of cricket on the village green, Floral Dance performed by a brass band.
What did all this mean? “That’s the English for you,” shrugged one refugee, implying that everyone east of Chepstow is stuck in the past.
“I want things to go back to the way they were,” skinny Geoff sighed. “If people would stop looking back to then, now might be better,” his ex-wife Dee snapped.
Sheen’s influence as a respected actor is the only reason this nonsense was filmed.
His vision of a better Britain appears to be divided into warring balkanized states. For the BBC to give him a platform to spout his divisive venom is a scandal.