The good guys wore donkey jackets and had fly-away hair. They talked like a politbureau and hung around in picket lines. The baddies were just as easy to spot too. after all, there was no uglier mob than the Thatcherite hordes of capitalism. Then things changed, and who’s side anyone was on became verb confusing indeed. Mike Cullen’s first play charts the socio-political landscape between the eras, as Salter, imprisoned for murder during the 1984 miners’ strike after a concrete slab was dropped from a bridge onto a carload of scab workers, returns to his old pit. awaiting him are former comrades who’ve either taken the path of least resistance or given up completely, as old scores are settled via the brutal extremes of working men’s patois and simmering violence. Loyalties aren’t so much divided as hi-jacked by Salter’s old comrade Hessel, who’d double cross his own shadow if it bought him some power, especially as the truth of how Salter’s father died becomes clear. While the still recent historical context of the play is a timely reminder of how the unions were crushed, The Cut is essentially structured as a classic Western, as broody anti-hero Salter rides into town with revenge on his mind, only to be given the runaround by the posse he left behind.
