Mike Kinsey

In 1945, during the final months of the Second World War, a group of soldiers perform for the Royal Artillery concert party, with comic acts and musical numbers for others prior to their departure for the frontlines. The party avoids partaking in combat duty; thus, the soldiers love being part of the outfit. Some even daydream of becoming world-famous actors when they leave the army.

Through the story of a single family, Brassneck traces a history that parallels the Labour Party's advent to power in 1945 through to the property speculation of the 1960s and the disillusionment with the Labour government in the early 1970s. Like most of the early work of the writers, David Hare and Howard Brenton, committed radical (if not revolutionary) socialists throughout the 1970s, it is a satirical attack on capitalist greed and corruption, full of savage, and often disturbing, humour.

"Why don't you keep that missus o' yours under control? She ain't exactly doin' you a packet o' good, is she? If she was mine I'd bloody put 'er right, I'll tell yer." The marriage of an introverted Scottish army sergeant and his loving, but independent wife is threatened by military life.

An opera singer finds out her late husband isn't actually dead when he shows up at her apartment. In the heat of the moment, she kills him but his body mysteriously disappears.