There is a bit they like to do in pantomimes when an audience member appears to have arrived late. To get them up to speed, there is a high-velocity replay of the opening 10 minutes. Leo Butler’s family saga creates something of the same effect – except instead of bringing us up to date on a couple of scenes, it races, boldly and exhaustively, through the last six decades.
We get 1969 and Neil Armstrong; 1971 and decimalisation; 1974 and the Wombles; 1979 and Margaret Thatcher; 1984 and Orgreave – right up to 2020 and Covid, followed by the Barbie movie and Ukraine.
