Across Britain’s stages, screens and galleries, a different set of voices is edging into the light, armed with grit and grace.
The year’s cultural story is not a glitzy awards moment. It’s the slow, hard reset underneath it: working-class artists claiming space, readers turning up, audiences roaring approval, and institutions—prodded by data and conscience—finally shifting their weight.
Stephen Graham’s moment and what it signals
Stephen Graham’s tear-pricked Emmy speech landed because it felt true. He framed his success as improbable for a mixed‑race kid from a Kirkby block, yet the ground has begun to move. Kids from estates are no longer just extras in someone else’s story. They are writing, producing and headlining their own.
Eight per cent. That’s the share of television workers from working‑class backgrounds, according to industry research quoted at the Edinburgh TV Festival. The figure jarred—and galvanised.
This year’s surge suggests a correction. The arts once relied heavily on working‑class talent; since the 1970s, that presence has reportedly halved. Now, a network of mentors, programmes and stubborn ambition is bending the arc back toward fairness and quality.
The new wave across stages, screens and shelves
Theatre shifts: weddings, penalties and Greek myths
At London’s National Theatre, Beth Steel’s Till the Stars Come Down turned a family wedding into a pressure cooker of class, migration and loyalty—and sold out. James Graham’s Dear England drew fresh crowds to a refreshed national story. In Salford, Gods of Salford set Greek myth on cobbled streets, pairing professional actors with 25 young locals, proving that talent multiplies when communities are invited in.
Television with teeth
Sophie Willan’s Alma’s Not Normal, rooted in care and chaos, didn’t ask for sympathy; it demanded honesty. Awards followed: three Royal Television Society gongs and a Bafta. Viewers recognised a life they knew, rendered with bite, humour and compassion.
Books prize lists get real
The Booker shortlist says plenty. Benjamin Wood’s Seascraper and Natasha Brown’s Universality push class into the frame, not as décor but as an engine of plot and consequence. Brown’s heroine refuses fairy tales about merit; she reads the stains of privilege on pay cheques and on psyches.
It’s not just Britain. Claire Baglin’s On the Clock and Lee Cole’s Fulfillment map precarity in French diners and American warehouses. Bashy’s Mobo‑winning LP stamped the theme bluntly: Being Poor Is Expensive.
Pop culture’s louder chorus
Oasis’s reunion reminded stadiums how swagger sounds when snobbery gets a kicking. Liam Gallagher saluted ticketless fans on Manchester’s Gallagher Hill and took a swing at officialdom in Edinburgh, boasting—wildly—of billions poured into the city. The figure raised eyebrows; the fury got cheers.
Stormzy chose a different weapon: scholarships. His partnership with Cambridge, via the #Merky Foundation and HSBC UK, puts Black students into lecture halls that once felt sealed. He has pledged £10m across 10 years to fight racial inequality, and he keeps stumping up.
Galleries have shifted, too. Johny Pitts’s touring show, After the End of History: British Working Class Photography 1989‑2024, reframed the everyday with dignity and edge. Interest in Tish Murtha’s images surged after a 2023 documentary; one of her photographs now fronts a Sam Fender record—north‑east defiance meeting north‑east melody.
From grime scholarships to estate‑born Emmy winners, the pipeline is no longer theory. It is tickets sold, jobs paid, and doors held open.
- 25 local Salford performers stepped on stage beside pros in Gods of Salford
- 2 Booker‑shortlisted novels with working‑class authors in 2025
- £10m pledged by Stormzy across 10 years to tackle inequality
- 1 landmark photography tour charting 35 years of working‑class Britain
- 3 major TV awards for Alma’s Not Normal, plus a Bafta
The long graft behind the overnight success
Behind the headlines sits graft. The anthology Common People, edited by Kit De Waal in 2019, gathered voices that publishers had overlooked and told them to go louder, not softer. Shane Meadows and Stephen Graham proved on screen that working‑class drama brings audiences with it, not after it. Meadows gave Vicky McClure her break in This Is England; Graham championed Jodie Comer and, more recently, Owen Cooper.
Michael Sheen co‑founded A Writing Chance with New Writing North to find writers in left‑behind places. That programme produced Tom Newlands, whose Only Here, Only Now became a standout novel of 2024. At the Edinburgh TV Festival, James Graham fired a challenge from the stage: if only 8% of TV staff come from working‑class backgrounds, who is missing when the stories get commissioned?
| Initiative | Backer | Focus | Numbers | Noted outcome |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A Writing Chance | Michael Sheen & New Writing North | Emerging writers | Cohorts across the UK | Debut success for Tom Newlands |
| #Merky scholarships | Stormzy & HSBC UK | Black students at Cambridge | £10m over a decade | Dozens of scholars funded |
| Common People | Edited by Kit De Waal | Working‑class writers | National anthology | New voices to agents and editors |
| After the End of History | Johny Pitts | Photography tour | 1989–2024 archive | Wider gallery representation |
Why this matters when Tommy Robinson grabs the mic
Tommy Robinson and Katie Hopkins market a version of the working class that is monochrome, anti‑immigrant and suspicious of Islam. That pitch travels well online. It travels less well in real life. In rehearsals, green rooms and galleries, the working class is mixed, multilingual and multi‑faith—and tired of being ventriloquised.
If you doubt it, look to Alina Akbar’s photography, to Ishy Din’s plays, to the films that carry Stephen Graham’s thumbprint. They show neighbourhoods that argue, love, graft and disagree without marching under one flag. They show a country as it is, not as a brand.
We don’t need louder culture‑warriors. We need better door‑openers—and more people like Stephen Graham who lift as they climb.
What changes next and how you can weigh in
Progress depends on habits, not hashtags. Audiences decide which stories live. Commissioners decide which careers begin. Councils decide which stages survive the winter bills. Each decision nudges the culture toward either a gated cul‑de‑sac or a busy street.
- Buy tickets where your values sit—local theatres, indie bookshops, community shows.
- Back bursaries and travel grants; small costs knock out great talent.
- Ask broadcasters to publish class background data alongside gender and ethnicity.
- Support youth rehearsal spaces; space is the overlooked subsidy.
- Celebrate mentorships; credit the ladder, not just the climber.
Mind the risks
Tokenism wastes trust. One‑off opportunities without pay breed churn. Gentrification can gut the very neighbourhoods that feed the arts. Keep an eye on who gets paid, who gets promoted and who sets the brief. Push for salaries on internships, and for regional commissioning that outlasts a press cycle.
A quick thought experiment
If television raised working‑class representation from 8% to 20% across 50,000 roles, that’s an extra 6,000 people shaping scripts, lighting rigs and commissioning slates. Add a £200 monthly travel stipend for 2,000 trainees and you free up £4.8m of time they currently lose to extra shifts. Small levers move heavy doors.
A final note for readers: class intersects with race, disability and gender. Artists often carry more than one barrier. The wins above came because people named the barriers, funded the bridge and shared the credit. That mix—humility, cooperation, respect—is the point. It’s the quiet difference between a Tommy Robinson microphone and a Stephen Graham megaphone.
That 8% figure jarred me too—does the research separate craft vs. office roles, and how are “working‑class backgrounds” defined over time? Methodology matters if we want real accountability.