Begging the Ring

Typical attempt at social realism by the independent team of Gregg and writer Hugh Stoddart. An investigation of a family's dilemma when the 18-year-old son, trained by his ambitious father for the local wrestling championships, receives his call-up papers for WWI, its failure derives not only from the limitations of the realist, semi-documentary style (Gregg fails to tease out the knotty problems of enforced conscription clearly); but also from the difficulty of following some of the Cornish dialect; and, most noticeably, from the awkward insertion of an intellectual-outsider, commenting chorus-fashion with lines like 'We're all wrestling with the angel of darkness, lad'.