Following a protracted labour dispute at the Liverpool docks, the workers reject their managers’ demands and decide to take over the operation themselves. The third docudrama Loach directed for the BBC series The Wednesday Play features real dockworkers, with unrehearsed lines and 16mm images that resemble news footage. Anticipating controversy, the BBC twice delayed its broadcast. When it was finally shown, the Daily Mail called it a “Marxist play presented as a sermon”. The filmmaker would take up the theme of labour disputes again in The Flickering Flame (1997).