BBC Radio 4, 23 October 2010
Set in the aftermath of World War II, Beat the Dog in his Own Kennel
evoked a period when anti-semitism once again reared its ugly head as a result of conflicts in Palestine. A working-class
Jew Harry (Jonathan Tafler) becomes embroiled in a plot to kill Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin, initiated by Avi, a mysterious
visitor to the United Kingdom (Stephen Greif). Peter Leslie Wild's production meandered through various twists and
turns, until it emerges that Avi is a double-agent employed by the British government to root out extremism. Avi's presumed
accomplice Dov (Richard Katz) is made the fall-guy, being assassinated by a government sniper. The plot is foiled, but little
or nothing has been achieved; anti-semitism still runs rife in working-class British society.
Based on recently-revealed secret documents, Beat the Dog in his Own Kennel
is at once an historical drama and a social satire, underlining how individuals like Dov are expendable as governments - and
their civil servants - resort to any means to sustain what they perceive as 'national security.' Turnbull, the Foreign Office
spokesperson (Malcolm Tierney) actively supports the idea of exterminating Bevin; the Foreign Secretary is a socialist,
whose political views are perceived as inimical to the country's future. He favoured independence for the colonies; the Foreign
Office wanted to preserve the Empire at all costs. In this political battle of wills Harry and Dov are nothing more than stool-pigeons.
Fortunately for Bevin - and for Britain as a whole - history proved the Foreign Office's
judgments to be wrong. India became independent in 1947, followed by the majority of the colonies in Africa and Asia. But such
events have never deterred governments from trying to manipulate circumstances - witness the Cabinet Secretary's recent decision
to suppress important evidence for the Chilcott inquiry, even though that evidence might help to explain former Prime
Minister Tony Blair's real motives for choosing to invade Iraq in 2005.
