The plays in The Spanner Experiment were written by Ernie Dalton for North West Spanner theatre group, based in Manchester in the 1970s. Performed across the UK in non-theatre venues such as factories, working men's clubs and community centres, the shows emerged from the crucible of changes in engineering work at the start of the post-industrial age. There is humour as the characters find hope in a hopeless situation, common humanity in the face of political differences. Seminal in their time, and still relevant today, the publication of these plays is long overdue.