Laboured Party

An unsuspecting Labour Party canvasser stumbles onto an experimental film set and is drawn into a strange atmosphere of uninhibited abandon.

In 1975 experimental filmmaker Stephen Dwoskin was in the midst of filming his avant-garde magnum opus Central Bazaar, a Big Brother-style happening in which five house-bound strangers enact their innermost desires. Enter an unsuspecting Labour Party canvasser, who rings the doorbell and suddenly finds himself party to the strange proceedings, falling under the playful influence of the cast and crew.

Dwoskin has described Laboured Party as some kind of a home movie, but it’s also an intriguing political film, illustrating the often vain attempts of politicians to reach out to the disaffected countercultural crowds that formed part of the 1970s electorate, a year or so before Punk broke.