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The play, which continued for over one hour, dealt episodically with the plight of a poverty-stricken Kowloon factory worker, who had lost his right hand in an
His unsuccessful struggle accident in a plastics factory.
for compensation was played out against a background of police corruption, triad violence and protection racket- eering, while his young daughter toiled wearily in a doll factory and his elderly wife sat at home making plastic flowers.
The scene was set by the appearance of a British toy factory executive, apparently based on the performance by Duffy in the "World in Action" programme.
He asked the
audience to identify "Action Men" and "Cindy" dolls partly made in Hong Kong; the action then switched to Mei Ling, the little girl, painting dolls' faces and soliloquising on the dignity of labour in China.
Much of the play was heavily angled left-wing propaganda, with the child labour question used as a peg on which to hang criticism of the British administration of Hong Kong and to praise the Chinese alternative.
A
Some scenes juxtaposed the poverty of the stricken man's family against the wealth and privilege of the British. court scene with the man explaining his industrial accident to an unsympathetic magistrate who eventually refused his plea for compensation was enacted simultaneously with a British diplomat's wife shown.being awarded £5,000 for breaking her arm after slipping on a pool of oil in a car
park.
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