the word is out

The news that mercury has been found in dolphins and pilot whales in Taiji, has the makings of a Japanese Enemy of the People. There's the mayor pointing to a report that it's safe. There's a health professor - the Dr Stockmann figure - saying it's dangerous and 'word is not getting out'.

It also recalls the disaster at Minamata in the 1950s when mercury was dumped in the sea as industrial waste. In 1972 David Holman wrote Drink The Mercury about it. It was the height of TIE.

In her interview with us, arts director Sian Ede recalls that 70s era of classroom-based small-scale drama: stark, bold and expressionistic. 'It had a real agenda.'