AustLit

Craig Munro (130) comments: 'About mid 1927, Stephensen wrote another, longer sketch for the Sunday Worker W.T.M. group just before its demise. This play was entitled 'Blasting the Reds, A Worker's Play', 'written in haste, repented at leisure by Peter Stephens'. He goes on as follows (133): 'Stephensen's sketch Blasting the Reds was straightforward political theatre, caricaturing the leading establishment figures in the British press and parliament with the aim of recruiting more workers to direct political action. It was important for communists like Stephensen to strengthen the British militant left which had been split by the failure of the general Strike and the abject capitulation of the union leadership. However, it was in line with early revolutionary communist policy that the most reviled characters in Stephensen's sketch were the labour party moderates 'Jimmie' (James Thomas) and 'Mac' (Ramsay MacDonald)...In Stephensen's view, both Thomas and MacDonald were class traitors, easily manipulated by the forces of capital and conservatism.

Stylistically, Stephensen's sketch was based as much on traditional vaudeville as on agitprop, and the actors were little more than mouthpieces for his satirical verse....Blasting the Reds, however, was also in the tradition of Russian Proletkult theatre. The large placards 'Boss Is God' and 'Blast the Reds' immediately established the political context, ensuring the whole action would be played against this backdrop of class antagonism.' (Craig Munro 'P. R. Stephensen and the early Workers' Theatre Movement in London', Australasian Drama Studies 1.2 (April 1983): 124-137).