h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Thursday night, I was channel hopping again and I caught up with an old film that I haven’t seen in years. ‘The Leather Boys’. It’s an old B&W film from the sixties and for me it’s a bit nostalgic because the opening scene was photographed in and outside a local girl’s school in Kingston, about a quarter mile from where I lived at the time.

It also happens to feature some of the other aspects of life I indulged in during the sixties with motor cycles and the Rocker café culture. One of the places featured being the Ace café, a meeting place for Rockers on the north circular road up Lunnon way. I did in fact actually visit the place a couple of time a bit after its heyday, but to my regret never indulged in disco racing which was a feature of the life there. Anyway, although I did have the bikes to do it with, mine in particular being a Norton 650ss, I digress.

The film is part of the BBC’s summer filmfest here.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/britishfilm/summer/whats_on/index.shtml which looks like having one or two films that I'd like to see or see again.

I wouldn’t really have bothered mentioning it except that after watching it I was reflecting on how life-like it really was. I’ve never previously rated it as a particularly ‘good’ film, it just happens to nudge a few memories for me. The dialog is awful, it’s stilted and sort of gets nowhere, and the acting isn’t particularly good either except for Rita Tushingham (the Tush as Dot)' But after I’d watched with fresh eyes so to speak, I realised that that was how what passed for conversations were really like at the time. It didn't reflect very well on us and the expletives had largely been omitted, and I didn’t like it much.

I still wouldn’t have bothered remarking on it here but for the fact that I caught another of the films in the season last night. It was titled ‘All or Nothing’ and because a reviewer mentioned something along the lines of ‘If you want to see what a cross section of life in Britain is like today, watch this’

This was probably one of the most depressing and hateful films I have encountered. The language was revolting and I know that it probably does reflect some, even many people’s lives, but if it is a cross section then God help us. Whereas the first film at least showed some sort of hope for the future, this monotonous drudgery of life interspaced with a singular coarseness of its characters didn’t. I left it feeling thoroughly depressed. Perhaps that's what the director wanted.

If it's the Mike Leigh 'All Or Nothing' you're talking about (with Timothy Spall and Lesley Manville), that's about par for the course. Leigh makes unbelievably bleak and depressing films. Have you ever seen a couple of TV plays from the 1970s called 'Abigail's Party' and 'Nuts in May'? Very difficult to watch these days. One of the DVDs I rented recently was another one of his TV plays - 'Grown Ups'. I remember watching all three of those when they were broadcast and enjoying them, but I could only get about 15 minutes into Grown Ups before I had to switch off.

Mike Leigh does make films that portray a somewhat stylised version of certain parts of British society (usually either the downtrodden-est section of the working class and the self-satisfied-est section of the middle class), but by no means can his films be described as revealing what it's like in Britain. He's a brilliant director, a one-off with his own unmistakable style, but along with others like Ken Loach and Alan Clarke, he makes 'social realism' films that are definitely an acquired taste, and it's a taste that, unfortunately, I seem to have lost. He's famous for making films with no script - everything is improvised by the actors, which is why you'll often see the same people in his films. He gives each actor a description of their character and an outline of where he wants the story to go, and they do the rest, even to the extent of going into pubs, shops etc as a group and in character so that they can immerse themselves in their characters.

He started off in film but then moved to TV plays and made some of the most well-known BBC Plays For Today such as the aforementioned Nuts in May and Abigail's Party. Then he returned to film and made High Hopes, then Life is Sweet. I think High Hopes is a bit more accessible than some of his other work, but I haven't seen it for a while so I might be remembering it when I could still watch his work and enjoy it.

However, one of his plays I can always watch is 'Meantime', with Phil Daniels, Tim Roth and Gary Oldman in only his second professional role, playing a teenage skinhead... at the age of 26. There's a lot of humour in it, but it's not going to make you laugh. It's going to make you wonder. It's going to make you think 'There but for the grace of God...'.

I'm very, very envious of anyone in the UK right now with this British film season going on. The Austin Film Society is going to be showing a short season of British realist cinema from the late 50s and early 60s at the place where I work in September and October - Sparrows Can't Sing, Look Back in Anger, Victim, The Girl With Green Eyes, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, and The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner. I shall be going to see at least four of those.

Which is a bit of a drag really cos that's when I was planning on taking my holiday

Mike Leigh. Yes that’s the one. This was probably one of the most depressing films I’ve seen. I can see a lot of truth in it but I really wouldn’t want to admit that it’s a reflection of the average British way of life.

I’ve seen Nuts in May around the time it came out and Abigail’s Party which was repeated a few years ago. I remember them as mildly amusing, but I wouldn’t have associated them with the same director. Grown Ups was mentioned in the clips programme but I haven’t seen it. Perhaps that’s just as well as I’d have to slit my wrists if it‘s anything like this one.

Actually, having had twenty four hours to contemplate it, I’d have to admit that it was a singular piece of work. It certainly produced a reaction, which is more than can be said for much of the dross that passes for drama these days. It’s not an experience I’d go out of my way to repeat though.

One of the TV pieces on social realism I’d like to try again that isn’t listed, is Boys from the Black Stuff. I did see it at the time but it sort of passed me by. It still crops in these ’’100 best of….’ programmes. Perhaps they’ll show the entire thing one of these days.

I never saw Boys From The Black Stuff, or the original TV play The Black Stuff. Maybe I saw one episode cos I do recall seeing Yosser striding onto a work site with his two kids and building a brick wall that was complete shite. And I think I remember Julie Walters laying into Michael Angelis. It would be fascinating to see it again now, 25 years after the events that shaped it and with nostalgic view of the 80s. The 1980s really were a good example of that old Chinese curse: May you live in interesting times. They were one of the most interesting times I've ever lived through.

Personally I think that I've been privileged to live in interesting times. Watching some of the things that have developed since the fifties. The cold war, Vietnam, the space race, Kennedy, Nixon, Watergate and all the rest. Fascinating stuff, what a ride!

Talking about must see lists, I recently did a bit for the EG and during the research got into the works of two of the early BBC writer and directors, Nigel Kneale and Rudi Cartier. I was looking at the published scripts for some of Kneale's work and it's surprised me just how clever the scripts were.

Over the years I have seen several of their productions at the time they were broadcast but didn't really appreciate them for what they were. If I can I'd now like to hunt down any copies I can find to see them again. They included:
Orwell's 1984 with Peter Cushing and Andre Morrell, This is the Year of the Sex Olympics, The Stone Tapes with Jane Asher and The Road.

I'm not sure if any of these are going to be findable but I think it could be worth a try.

I'm familiar with the Cushing/Morell 1984 but I don't think I've ever seen it. Coincidentally I just watched one of the first Morecambe and Wise shows that Eddie Braben wrote (from 1969), and the guest star in Ernie's play - King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table - was Peter Cushing

The 1960s and 70s were such a creative time for television drama. There was Armchair Theatre on ITV, on the BBC we had The Wednesday Play and Play For Today - all three were an incredibly fertile ground. And comedy too - just look at how many long-running sitcoms came out of Comedy Playhouse (Steptoe and Son, Til Death Us Do Part, Last of the Summer Wine) and series such as Seven of One with Ronnie Barker (Porridge, Open All Hours).