Class Enemy (play)

Class Enemy is a 1978 play by the British playwright Nigel Williams, which premiered at the Royal Court Theatre.^[1]

Class Enemy was written in 1978 as a social commentary on the apathy and anarchy in inner city British schools. The set is a bleak classroom with broken tables and chairs, dirty blackboard and lit with sterile fluorescent lamps. The play starts with six students waiting for a teacher and, like Samuel Beckett's Vladimir and Estragon, they seem to wait in vain. What the audience learns as the play unravels is that no one cares any more - at least not for these students. Instead, Iron commandeers the situation, forcing each student to 'teach' a lesson.^[2][3]

Phil Daniels played the role of Iron in the original 1978 Royal Court Theatre production. Daniel Day-Lewis played the role in the 1980 production at the Old Vic Theatre, Bristol.^[4]