How is Arnold Wesker’s Roots, which resembles an Archers episode, considered a classic?

The Almeida wants to examine the ‘Angry Young Man’ phenomenon of the 1950s but the term ‘man’ seems to create difficulties so the phrase ‘Angry and Young’ is being used instead. It’s strange to encounter a theatre that’s scared of words.

The opening play, Roots, by Arnold Wesker, looks at the conflict between town and country in 1950s Norfolk. Beatie, in her early twenties, returns from London and announces to her warm-hearted but unsophisticated family that her boyfriend, Comrade Ronnie, wants to meet them. He’s a pastry chef who supports a Marxist revolution and Beatie is eager to fight for everything he believes in.

During her spell in London, Beatie has become a cultural snob and sneers at her siblings and her parents for their traditional, small-minded ways. Her mum and dad agree to host a party for Comrade Ronnie and the preparations for this event take up the entire play. Nothing else happens. Long chunks of stage time are wasted as the characters peel apples, sweep floors, cook muffins, gobble stew, fill pails with water, gossip about local scandals and discuss the cost of using the electric oven to bake pies.

The climax of the first half involves the death of Stan, the village drunkard, who suffers from explosive diarrhoea. The second half grinds at the pace of a vintage steamroller towards a predictable anti-climax. In the final moments, Beatie stops lecturing her family and directs her borrowed fury at the audience. ‘Stinking commercialism insults us,’ she yells in a generalised rant about capitalism and power. It sounds like a TikTok speech delivered by a millionaire anarchist from her walk-in wardrobe. Roots is held up as a theatrical classic but the reality is rather different. It feels like a two-hour episode of The Archers that couldn’t be broadcast because it wasn’t exciting enough.