Director: Mike
Leigh. Stars: Rory
Kinnear, Maxine
Peake and Neil
Bell.
Waterloo – a field in
Belgium where in 1815
the armies of Britain,
Prussia and other European powers defeated the
armies of Napoleon Bonaparte. St Peters Field
– a square in Manchester
where on 19 August 1819
cavalry charged a crowd
of unarmed protesters
killing around 20 people.
The closeness of the two
events led to the latter
being called the Peterloo
Massacre; an event now
the subject of a feature
film, Peterloo, directed by
Mike Leigh. The events
in the field in Belgium
were made into a film
almost 50 years ago, in
a film entitled Waterloo.
A film about the events
closer to home is long
overdue.
