In 2016, Beth Steel was in rehearsals for her play Labyrinth at Hampstead theatre when the EU referendum result was announced. People around her were surprised by the outcome. Steel wasn’t. “I was fascinated by how shocked they were. My entire family and my hometown [Mansfield] voted over 70% leave.”
Her new play, The House of Shades, is not about Brexit specifically, but is an intergenerational drama that revolves around a working-class Nottinghamshire family over the course of decades and different governments. In its majestic sweep it examines the currents that run through the Webster family amid the bigger political dramas that frame their lives. To understand the current moment, she thinks, and especially the causes and effects of Brexit, we have to go back. “You’ve got to see where this tidal wave [of Brexit] originates, and it goes way further back than you think.”
