The Little Stranger (2018)

***Contains mild spoilers, or an explanation of the film for those looking for one***

The latest from Lenny Abrahamson has had something of a mixed reception which perhaps ought to come as no surprise for a film that purports to be a poltergeist/haunted house chiller but is actually a meditation on the British class system and the encroaching sea change of the Post-War Attlee Labour government.

A trim and dour Domhnall Gleeson stars as Faraday, a Warwickshire doctor who makes a house call to Hundreds Hall, a rather dilapidated mansion belonging to the Ayres family reside. The mansion, as we will come to see via a series of flashbacks, has a special resonance for Faraday as he first got to walk its environs and see within as part of a grand fete at the close of WWI. Back then he was a poor, local child but now, having carved out a medical career for himself, he returns, not as an equal perhaps, but as someone the family no less rely upon. The elderly matriarch Mrs. Ayres (Charlotte Rampling) has never got over the death of her child, Susan, and her long-held grief begins to manifest itself in various disturbing ways just as her son Rod (Will Poulter), a former RAF pilot suffering excruciating burns presents with debilitating injuries both physical and mental. Only Caroline (Ruth Wilson) seems untouched by illness and Faraday becomes particularly close to her, hopeful of marriage and a future. However as Faraday becomes more and more attached to the family and Hundreds, their combined fates grow all the more desperate.

Adapted from the novel of the same name by Sarah Waters, The Little Stranger takes the generic elements of a classic ghost story to deliver something altogether more interesting and non-generic. Much like the work of Henry James or Charles Dickens, The Little Stranger is a story that is just as interested in the era or culture as it is in delivering scares. Abrahamson shoots his film through with a barely repressed sense of longing and regret that ultimately is the thing that comes back to haunt the protagonists, rather than any poltergeist or bogeyman. Tellingly, whilst Abrahamson is on record as believing that there is something paranormal going on within the narrative, he's equally at pains to point out that the horror is man-made, borne of the things the characters have tried to suppress. Ultimately, it's a story of a boy (Faraday) who grew up conditioned into thinking that the Hundreds was this great place of status and respect and whose impulsive ambition left him passionately desiring to be a part of such a place. Now, as a grown man, he finds he has that opportunity, but he also finds that it still remains elusive because this is not his world or his people. It is, I feel, that childish longing, and all its bitterness and pain, that the Hundreds itself has somehow absorbed into its being. It is those emotions that are the root of the haunting and it presents itself in a variety of personal ways to the residents; for Roddy, it is a fire reminiscent of the fireball that engulfed his plane in WWII, for Mrs Ayres, it is her dead child, and for Caroline, ultimately, it is Faraday's childhood desire.

Like I say, I can see why some audiences and critics didn't get on board with The Little Stranger because it is an ambiguous movie and it's becoming increasingly clear that moviegoers like things cut and dried when it comes to genre film-making. It's also a parochial movie, with its focus on the repressive class system of Britain in the late twentieth century and I can't imagine that travelling particularly well outside of the UK or indeed striking much of a chord with British audiences under the age of thirty at the very least. But I personally, really enjoyed it; it's a very attractive, polished feature which boasts strong performances, specifically from Gleeson whose buttoned-up characterisation is perfectly pitched and an always impressive Ruth Wilson. Three Girls star Liv Hill also deserves a mention for her performance as the maid, Betty. On Letterboxd I am currently torn between rating this 3.5 or 4 ot of 5, so yeah all the 2.5 ratings on there can cheg on.

The Agitator (1945)

I came across this film some time ago when compiling a Letterboxd list of films about unions and militancy but, as it was considered 'lost', I didn't hold out much hope of seeing it. 

Thankfully Renown seem to have rediscovered it and Talking Pictures broadcast it on Saturday. The story of a militant socialist who finds himself, somewhat surprisingly, inheriting the very factory he works at struck me as an interesting one, but unfortunately it quickly becomes clear that neither the makers of this film nor W. Riley the author of the novel it is adapted from, have much sympathy for the cause of socialism. 

What unfolds is a sort of relatively serious Brewster's Millions story which sees our firebrand hero, Pettinger (played by William Hartnell, back in the days when he was known as Billy Hartnell and a good eighteen years away from playing the very first incarnation of Doctor Who) swept from the factory floor and planted not only behind the owner's desk but also in his palatial home with £40,000 in his bank account. This rare streak of fortune occurs because, prior to his death, the owner, Mark Overton (Frederick Leister) listened to Pettinger's claims against his father, Overton senior; Pettinger asserts that it was actually his father (who also worked at the factory) who invented a machine that increased the productivity of the business ten fold, thus achieving the personal wealth the factory owner now enjoys, whilst Pettinger's father was cheated by Overton senior, receiving nothing in return. Overton subsequently changed his will to bequeath the business to Pettinger who felt his family where poorly treated. When faced with such good fortune, Pettinger presses forward believing that a co-operative stake for all workers in the business is the way forward. However he is soon met by the cold shoulders of his fellow businessmen, suppliers, buyers and factory owners who refuse to have anything to do with this chippy upstart. Equally his own workforce - who once cheered his socialist stance - now believe him to be a traitor to their class. His equally political girlfriend (the great Mary Morris, rather ill served in a small role here, despite earning second billing) terminates their relationship too, whilst the belligerent foreman, Tetley (future Dad's Army star John Laurie), who always viewed Pettinger as a troublemaker, refuses to comply with his new methods and practices.

Put like that, it's easy to sympathise with Pettinger's plight isn't it? It's clear that it is snobbery from his new class and inverted snobbery from his old class that creates his problems. But the film refuses to see it like that. Instead, Pettinger is shown to be failing because he is out of his depth and not 'to the manor born'. His inability to secure orders is explained away as his fault; he's too aggressive because deep down he knows he doesn't belong and so he employs a hostile exterior. His plans for a co-operative in which every worker shares in the factory's fortune is barely explored, scuppered by Tetley and his fellow foremen who believe the business is bound to fail. The merits of such socialist practice is not acknowledged by the film, thereby nailing its own political colours to the mast. The fact that we're later supposed to side with the intractable, truculent Tetley whose attitudes clearly arise from the grudge he holds against a workmate he once oversaw and disapproved of is particularly galling. Worst of all, the big twist in the plot which ensures Pettinger more or less relinquishes his stake in the factory, is the revelation that not only was his own father not the victim of the unscrupulous Overton senior that he believed, but was in fact the real cheat. Moore Marriott of Will Hay films fame arrives as an elderly, near senile and down on his luck contemporary of Pettinger's father who explains that it was he who actually gave his father the idea about the machine and that, whilst his father was in fact paid an ex gratia payment of £100 for the idea, he refused to share it with Marriott. The fact that the misfortune of Marriott's character, now residing in penury with the Salvation Army, is laid at the door of this payment he was cheated out of is the glaring proof of the political bias at the heart of this film. What about the labour he was cheated out of? If he's destitute after working all his life at Overton's factory then surely the cause is the (clearly) poor wages he was paid! Pettinger's idea is to end all that, to give the employees a stake in the business they can all benefit from, but it's dismissed out of hand by both the film's characters and the clearly right wing capitalist-sympathetic filmmakers and writers.

Despite its conservative stance and the expectation that our sympathies should lie with the status quo, The Agitator is still quite an enjoyable film thanks to a bristling turn from Hartnell. It's an almost Cagney-like turn, which is fitting given that he was renowned for playing gangsters and tough guys at this stage in his career. In fact, you could easily imagine the storyline of The Agitator transported across the pond with Cagney in the lead role. The storytelling, the direction from John Harlow, and some of the playing all suggest a desire to be American rather than British, which makes both its philosophy and style all the more out of step with UK audiences when you consider the fact that, when the film was released in '45, the British public voted for a socialist government in Attlee's Labour.

PS; apropos of nothing, The Agitator is one of those rare films (along with several things Alan Bennett has written and the Dirk Bogarde Bond spoof, Hot Enough For June) that has a character who shares my surname, Cunliffe - albeit it it is spelt here in the credits with a 'Y' rather than an 'I'.

Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960)

Whilst Woodfall’s previous efforts Look Back in Anger and The Entertainer could lay claim to creating the genre we came to know as kitchen sink, it perhaps wasn’t until Saturday Night and Sunday Morning that this style of social realism really came into its own, thanks to its star, Albert Finney. Simply put, unlike Richard Burton and Laurence Olivier (the stars of those earlier Woodfall films) the Salford born Finney was unmistakably the real deal. Before Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, the working classes were neither seen or represented in mainstream British cinema. The closest we had was perhaps John Mills or Richard Attenborough, dropping their aitches and stiffening their upper lips as heroic tommies or jolly jack tars in any number of war pictures. But now it was the start of the 1960s, the war was long over, and Woodfall were determined to do things differently. The time had finally come to use the big screen as a mirror on which to reflect the lives and attitudes, the preoccupations and concerns of its working class audiences.

Read my full review at The Geek Show

The Gamekeeper (1980)

As with Kes, Ken Loach once again brings to the screen a novel by Barry Hines with The Gamekeeper, a film that essentially depicts the life of a man who is oblivious to the exploitation he is subject to as a result of the class system. As Hines said, the story was "about class, not gamekeepers. You don't have to say anything; you just show it".  And show it Loach does; this may not be his most obviously political film, but it is perhaps just as satisfying precisely because it is so understated in regards to its exploration of social inequality.

The film focuses on the eponymous character, former steelworker George Purse. Purse is a skilled and dedicated countryman as witnessed in the observational style Loach employs as Purse goes about his daily tasks, such as nurturing pheasant chicks, laying traps and snapping the necks of rabbits. But away from this, in his interactions, he is an ambivalent figure adrift and awkward in the world. His role means he is disliked by many in the village and local housing estate, who rue his unimpeachable approach to upholding the rights of the landed gentry and his fixed, intractable views on the trespassing and poaching that occurs on his lordship's estate. Though he is the same class as them, his position in the archaic feudal system means he sets himself both above them and apart from them, sometimes quite oblivious to the fact that he works long hours for a pittance and little thanks from the duke who is so rarely in residence. One key scene set in a pub, the first in which the inequalities of the system are implicitly demonstrated by Loach and Hines, sees Purse's friend point out that the duke doesn't have, as he believes, the right to protect the land as he sees fit because "it weren't their land in the first place". It's clear from this scene, and Askham's subtle reaction, that Purse is unsettled by the suggestion, rocking his previously assured world view.

Wisely though, these things do not come to a head, as both Loach and Hines are aware that life will go on for the likes of Purse. The only pay off we see is in the film's fitting conclusion which highlights how little reward there is for Purse as we see him returning home after the annual pheasant shoot to a frozen pie his wife has left out for him, whilst she is called to prepare the banquet at the big house for the duke's shooting party guests. 

The Gamekeeper is a beautifully shot documentarian style piece boasting excellent cinematography from Chris Menges that captures  not only the beautiful Yorkshire countryside, but also the gamekeeper's duties - so be warned, some scenes are not for wildlife and countryside lovers who are faint of heart.

Lastly, just the other week John, my next door neighbour, passed away. I've known him all my life and it's going to be strange not seeing him pottering around in his front garden each day. In many ways Purse reminded me of him; like Purse, John, was a true northerner, who spoke in a thick Lancastrian accent fast diminishing and was well versed in country matters. He owned a plot on 'the moss', the hills at the back of our terraces, he was a market gardener, a pigeon fancier and a greyhound racer in his time. His love and knowledge of all things flora, fauna and animal was a joy to behold. *Raises a glass* here's to you, John. RIP.

Miss Julie (1999)

"If they aren't any better than us then what is the point of us striving to better ourselves?"

Miss Julie is a Swedish play written in 1888 by August Strindberg concerning the toxic love between Jean, a servant and the titular Miss Julie, his master's daughter. Despite the play's age and its foreign setting, it remains something of an oft staged favourite in the provincial theatres of the UK, and it's easy to see why; the explicit theme of class warfare and the implicit theme of Darwinism, coupled by Strindberg's naturalistic approach mean that it still has much to say to its contemporary audiences in a country that still feels the harshness of its class divide. It is the antithesis of Downton Abbey.

The play has also been adapted several times for the cinema, and this 1999 adaptation from director Mike Figgis is especially worth watching. Figgis does relatively little in lifting the film from its stage origins - there are no sweeping shots of the Midsummer's Eve lit Swedish landscape or much filler, the whole thing is shot in an obvious studio, which highlights the artificial nature of the painted scenery during the brief sojourns 'outside'  - but what he does do is use the camera in a variety of interesting, intrusive Dogme-like ways to capture the spark and passion between his two leads, Saffron Burrows and Peter Mullan. 

I would actually argue that this (along with Paddy Considine's directorial debut Tyrannosaur) is Mullan's finest hour. An actor with a plethora of strong performances behind him, it's no small compliment to claim that he's particularly electrifying here in drawing out the grasping ambitions of his footman, Jean, in contrast with the equally ugly arrogant privilege Burrows displays as Miss Julie. I defy you to try and take your eyes off him and, when Miss Julie comments that his eyes resemble ''burning black coals'' you realise that there is no finer description for Mullan's powerful, unflinching stare. Much comment has been made remarking on the height differences between the willowy Burrows and the diminutive Mullan, but I actually think that that is only fitting for the characters; the upper class lady and the lower class male servant. When he talks of climbing the branches to reach the top of the tree and the golden eggs in the nest he dreams of (a clear metaphor for his desire to become gentry) you can almost see Burrow's statuesque imperious frame as the physical embodiment of that desire, with him climbing up and trampling over her which, as a notion, only adds to the imagery of their hurried, rutting copulation in the larder from which neither character can ever go back. 

In the third role, that of the cook Christine, Maria Doyle Kennedy is just as impressive. Overall, this is a classy adaptation that has the ability to grip the viewer from the off.

Went The Day Well? (1942)

A superb wartime propaganda piece from Ealing and a classic war film, 1942's Went The Day Well? has its origins in a Graham Greene short story entitled The Lieutenant Died Last. Published two years earlier, Greene's story concerned a village poacher and Boer War veteran, who single-handedly foils the Nazis attempt to invade a sleepy rural English village. In the hands of Ealing writers John Dighton, Diana Morgan and Angus MacPhail, only the central premise is really kept, placing the action in fictional Bramley End (in reality, Turville, Oxfordshire) where the village squire Wilsford (Leslie Banks) has plotted with the Nazis, allowing a troop to surreptitiously arrive in the village disguised as British soldiers on manoeuvres, ahead of a full blown German invasion. The villagers are initially taken in by this recce group's perfect English, but  when they are eventually roused to the truth, they respond with a determined bravery, an impressive resourcefulness and some surprising ruthlessness.

It's a playful film and never more so than in the way it repeatedly offers its audience false hopes which are almost immediately cruelly dashed; land girls Ivy and Peggy (Thora Hird and Elizabeth Allan) smuggle a message written on an egg to the visiting delivery boy - but they're broken when the boy is knocked off his bike. The woman who is responsible, Mrs Fraser's visiting cousin (Hilda Bayley) is slipped a handwritten SOS by Fraser (Marie Lohr) - but frustratingly, the ditzy woman uses the note to hold in place her faulty car window. When it is dislodged, her pesky dog on the back seat quickly devours it.

But perhaps most cruelly of all, is the moment when one feel sure the tide will turn, the scene in which Muriel George's genial and stout old postmistress shows a surprising reserve of courage when she throws pepper into the eyes of her billeted German soldier, before violently finishing the blinded man off with an axe. Immediately after, she is attempting to place an SOS through to the nearby town's switchboard but her past gossiping means the girls there aren't keen to answer her straight away, allowing a German solider to exact his revenge with his bayonet. It's a remarkable scene, raising and dashing our hopes as well as stirring our senses in the most surprising of ways. I defy anyone not to feel something at her seemingly casual confession before she strikes out at her soldier concerning what she believes to have been her greatest misfortune - the inability to bring a child into the world. Her comment that she blamed her husband, whilst he blamed her, says so much in such a short space of time, of the still waters that run deep in seemingly provincial, ordinary lives. It's in that playfulness that the film's key message; the indiscriminate nature of evil, how it will take life regardless of dreams, ambitions or unfulfilled potential, can and will strike in wartime and that people must watch against it. I can only imagine how palpable such a sobering message felt in the hearts and minds of the audiences of the day.

Ultimately, it's down to plucky young Harry Fowler as evacuee George to break across country to raise the alarm in the town as Frank Lawton's sailor on leave leads the rebellion in the heart of the village. In its tale of ordinary villagers performing extraordinary heroics, Went The Day Well? both serves as a vital propaganda piece during the dark days of the invasion threat (although it was released somewhat after such crisis) as well as providing a comment on class in British society - it's no accident, that the middle class squire is the villain of the piece, whilst the poachers, village bobbies, vergers, land girls, children and housewives etc are on the side of the angels.

And lastly...

...You don't mess with a gun totin' Thora Hird!

"First They Came For The Trade Unionists...."

As it was before, so it is again now.

Just four days have passed since the election result was announced and just one day has passed since Cameron has organised his cabinet and already the Tories have shown that they intend to dismantle the rights of the working classes once more.

Sajid Javid, the new Business Secretary, has announced he intends to make ''significant changes'' to the strike laws under the new Conservative government when the Queen's Speech takes place next month. It will be one of the first bills to be put forward and had previously been blocked by the Tories coalition partners, the Lib Dems. As a former Shop Steward myself, this move terrifies and angers me considerably. 

"We need to update our strike laws" he says. "We've never hidden away from the changes we want to make. I think it's essential we make these changes"

The change being that a strike affecting essential public services will require the backing of 40% of eligible union members whereas currently, a strike is valid if the majority of those balloted come out in favour of industrial action.

They will also need 50% turnout minimum in strike ballots and will lift restrictions in place regarding blacklegs and scabs, sorry 'agency workers', to replace those workers on strike. 

"By increasing the thresholds," Javid went on to say "it will certainly increase the hurdles that need to be crossed"

What he means is legal strike action will become nigh on impossible meaning workers will just have to put up with poor and dangerous conditions, low wages and pensions etc and the worst kind of employer will thrive and benefit as a result.

As we saw with Thatcher and the NUM in the '80s, the first action of a Tory government is to attack the working classes and ensure they can no longer unite and organise to fight for their share of the pie.

It's happening again. I'm reminded of Pastor Martin Niemoller's words about the rise of fascism and the holocaust;

"First they came for the Communists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Communist.

Then they came for the Socialists and I did not speak out, because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me"

Don't be complacent. Don't think this does not effect you because you're not considered left-wing or because you don't belong to a trade union. These actions are made to ensure you have no rights whatsoever and you will wake up one day and find that is the case and all those people who tried to make sure that didn't happen will have been dealt with first.

So support your local unions now. Support people's right to stand up and protest when something isn't fair. 

Because after them, it's your freedom next.

And the abolition of the Human Rights Act, another bill the Tories so desperately want to pass, proves that.

Play For Today : Three from Richard Eyre

Today is the 72nd birthday of Richard Eyre (or to give him his proper title, Sir Richard Charles Hastings Eyre CBE) the celebrated film, TV, theatre and opera director.

From the late 70s through to the early 80s, Eyre was a producer and director at the BBC, specifically with the excellent Play For Today strand. As it's currently a project of mine to watch as many of these stand alone dramas as I can, I thought I'd mark Eyre's birthday with reviews of three of his best from that period.

The Comedians (1979)

The Comedians, Trevor Griffiths intense play made its debut at the Nottingham Playhouse in 1975 before being adapted for television with the BBC's Play For Today strand four years later with direction from Eyre. Apprehensive about the infrequent but strong (for the time at least) swearing, the beeb chose to broadcast it beyond the watershed at 10:10pm on 25th October 1979 (just a few days after my birth, fact fans!)

Watching the play again recently after several years since I first saw it gave me an extra resonance as I have since become involved in both helping to teach and train people to perform drama in front of audiences and have made my own debut as a stand up comic. But it would be quite naive to view Griffiths' play solely about a Manchester night class of trainee comedians making their debut, the key theme here are complacency and rebelliousness and Bill Fraser's former comedian turned teacher's warm up tongue twister 'The traitor distrusts the truth' as one by one, his charges betray him by discarding all they have learnt to appease the talent scout from London.  

It is only Gethin (a superlative performance from Jonathan Pryce that helped skyrocket his career) whose material is perhaps less a betrayal and more a direct challenge to his mentor.  Considered "aggressively unfunny" by the talent scout, his nihilistic and uncompromisingly honest mix of skinhead/football culture and mime is utterly spellbinding and almost unbearably tense whilst seemingly pointing the way to the rising scene of alternative comedy occurring in Soho in direct contrast to the more perversely cosy casually racist world of working men's clubs and the ITV series The Comedians.

This remains one of the very finest Play For Today's ever produced with a brilliant cast including the starmaking turn from Jonathan Pryce, Bill Fraser, Derrick O'Connor, David Burke, Linal Haft, Edward Peel, James Warrior and John Barrett. Despite this, and perhaps inevitably, Mary Whitehouse didn't enjoy it and sent a complaint into the BBC which made it's way to Eyre's desk. The crux of her complaint was to do with the play's 'bad language', which she proceeded to list for Eyre culminating in her quoting the following line "Prick of a brothel"

Eyre's reply to Mrs Whitehouse is a joy to behold. Informing her that what she actually heard was the line "Prick of a brother" he goes on to suggest that perhaps the watchdogs own typewriter has been infected by the moral corruption she saw everywhere! Needless to say, Mrs Whitehouse was not amused.

Country (1981)

First impressions of Country, a 1981 Play For Today once again from the pen of Trevor Griffiths and directed by Richard Eyre, suggest we're in store for the traditional upper class period drama. The starry, indeed classy cast which consists of Leo McKern, James Fox, Wendy Hiller and Joan Greenwood etc, the sumptuous location of a stately home and the 1945 setting, all point towards Brideshead territory. But, this being Griffiths, it's a far more political and cutting piece about class.

Griffiths takes his polemical potshots against the Carlion family (which he named after the Corleones in the Godfather films, giving you some indication of what he thinks about English aristocratic families - they're as bad as the Mafia) depicting them as emotionally bankrupt, with their sole collective thought being the preservation and prosper of their way of life and the brewery business they have made their millions from. 

Like Michael Corleone, the second son Philip played by James Fox is drawn surely back into the bosom of his family following the death of his elder brother during the war. Initially resistant, Country depicts his change of heart and his realisation of the new enemy to defend themselves against - the no longer silent, happy to serve working classes who have felt the tide turn following the Labour landslide that occurs during the film, with Fox brilliantly and almost imperceptibly turning from carefree to ice cold as it progresses. 

Griffiths isn't afraid to make his influences known during Country with much of it taking its cue not only from the aforementioned The Godfather but also from Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard (which plays as a swansong for the decline of Russian aristocracy) and in subverting the trends of the usual period costume drama. Subtly satirical it also has as much to say about the political climate of the year in which it was broadcast, 1981, as it does about the period it is set, 1945. It is a deeply sobering and effective critique on Thatcherism and I believe it was initially supposed to be the first of several plays reflecting the Conservative party, its ideals and its effects upon British society from post-war to their 1979 election win that sadly came to nothing.

The Imitation Game (1980)

The Imitation Game - No, not the Benedict Cumberbatch blockbuster about Bletchley Park, this Richard Eyre directed, Ian McEwan Play For Today about Bletchley Park predates that film by thirty-four years and stars Harriet Walter as an intelligent 19 year old woman who escapes her dull, patronising middle class existence to join the ATS and go to war, only to find the glass ceiling is firmly in place even at times of great crisis.

Initially, just like the makers of the more recent film which shares its name, McEwan had wanted to write a play about Alan Turing, but found information regarding the genius who helped us win the war scant and somewhat unforthcoming in 1970s Britain. What he did amass made him realise his Turing would have to be, in the main, invention. Besides which, his research led him into interesting aspects of life at Bletchley and the lack of females intensively involved in Project Ultra, the perceived and insulting notion being that women could not be trusted with secrets. McEwan became fascinated by the inequality between the genders and how, an establishment run by men, excluded them from all aspects of war and the secrets of war, save for roles that effectively positioned them as housekeepers, cooks and tea makers, chauffeurs and secretaries. The irony of course being that it was women, men believed, who were embodiment of what the war was being fought for.

The Imitation Game serves as an interesting companion piece to that other WWII/Intelligence set Play for Today, David Hare's Licking Hitler, covering as it does the rude awakening of a young girl who simply wants to do her bit in the time of crisis. However, Licking Hitler differs in that it deals primarily with the obvious notions of class (the heroine of the piece is a naive upper class woman) whereas McEwan's film goes much deeper in its exploration depicting class going hand in hand with the restrictive nature of a patriarchal society that allows the ascendancy of one sex of another in all aspects. This is shown across the whole play from Cathy's father, a possible fascist sympathiser played by Bernard Gallagher, who rules the roost from his armchair with pipe and slippers and in exchanges where an officer claims Cathy's kneeing in the balls of a publican trying to throw her out of the pub was “more serious than rape, wouldn’t you say?” and a lecture to male NCO's concerning how to handle the ATS girls which suggests they are unable to stand for long periods of time and that its best to ignore their emotions.  It is a play which is very much about repression - repression of knowledge, of women, and of homosexuality, as we see with the character of Turner (a thinly veiled Turing) played by Nicholas Le Prevost who disastrously beds Harriet Walter's Cathy and directs a post impotent fit of paranoid male rage at her borne from his own deeply repressed sexuality. Equally, the blind repression of women upon women is horrifically shown when several ATS girls turn on one of their number who they deem 'a slag' in their dorm and force her into the bath. Ultimately it is a deeply ingrained repression and, in her attempts to break out from it, you know that Cathy will pay a heavy and unjust price.

The Imitation Game is a poignant and sobering piece about gender inequality which may not be the brightest and cheeriest of entertainments but is a deeply powerful and thought provoking one nonetheless.

Like many Play For Today's of the time, all these three remain languishing in the BBC vaults unwatched. 

 To get the BBC to consider repeating some of these classic Play For Today's please sign the petition I started here

Lady Chatterley (2006)

Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans.

That's what John Lennon said and I can certainly sympathise. 

Let me explain, I first knew of this 2006 French adaptation of DH Lawrence's classic and controversial novel Lady Chatterley's Lover (though it is actually an adaptation of Lawrence's 1927 novel John Thomas and Lady Jane which precedes LCL's first publication by one year) some time around 2009 I'm guessing, when I saw the DVD in the old HMV on Bold Street in Liverpool. A French take on an English classic immediately struck me as both strange and exotic, but then for the former I reasoned that we Brits (and our American cousins too) had adapted foreign literature  many times over, so why not vice versa? However, despite my piqued interest I did not purchase it that day - like a lot of euro cinema titles in HMV it was ridiculously overpriced at something like £20 and so I decided to keep an eye out for it rather than buy it.

Fast forward a couple of years and Lady Chatterley turned up on Film 4 in the wee small hours. I set my Sky+ to record it and subsequently copied it to disc. Given that I recorded the film complete with ad breaks I'm guessing this recording comes from late 2012 or early 2013 as there are ads for the then current cinema releases of Les Mis and Zero Dark Thirty. 

Time and time again, life - and other films - got in the way of me watching this.

Cue today, a Saturday in 2015 and I finally get round to watching the film - thanks to a friend's review on Letterboxd reminding me to get my skates on.

Hey, six years isn't too bad right?

Was it worth the wait? Yes it was. Marina Hands is a beautiful actress who perfectly embodies Lady Constance's doe eyed sense of wonderment as she awakens to the sensual world and realises she needs the body and not the mid alone to fully live to her potential. It's a superlative and much affecting turn.

Jean-Louis Coulloc'h initially confuses by playing a gamekeeper called Parkin and not Mellors and by being rather nondescript to look at, but over the film's near three hour running time, I came to appreciate his more humble appearance much more and found it perhaps more faithful than having some strapping stud roaming through the bracken. But oh, if only he had more charisma, more light and shade which would somehow merit what he claims his mother once said, 'that he was more woman than man'. Coulloc'h's performance is sadly almost as bland as his physical appearance, which makes it all the more disappointing given that Hands is sublime; a definitive Constance who makes you believe her newfound passion even when acting against such a performance.

Thankfully, Hippolyte Girardot doesn't let the side down for the men- ironically enough. He plays Sir Clifford, Constance's paralysed impotent husband and manages to convey many emotions beyond the one note cold and traditionally bigoted aristocrat that other adaptations may unimaginatively depict, whilst director Pascale Ferran delivers a considerately paced, beautiful and understated sensual movie with more emphasis on the Constance and Parkin undressing one another; the tentative, drawn out rituals that precede their lovemaking than the actual main event itself and I think I much preferred that and found that more affecting. 

Above all, Ferran's film feels fresh and romantic despite the great affair depicted being somewhat one side thanks to the casting. It's only that which stops this getting 4 (or more) stars over on the review site Letterboxd from me. Or, rather is it my inability to make my mind up regarding Coulloc'h? Because as soon as I've written this I feel I'm perhaps being too hard on him. It's true he lacks the vitality of Lawrence's hero, but there is something there I feel - there is a natural progression in terms of opening up/feelings etc but he occasionally still seems too deferential opposite Hands even when they're well into their affair. Then again maybe its just because Hands was clearly so good that I find his less arresting performance an issue.

In Which We Serve (1942)

In Which We Serve was broadcast on BBC2 for the umpteenth time Saturday just gone and, regardless of my familiarity with the film, I just knew I'd want to watch it again and so pressed record on my Sky+. Then the news came in that one of its stars and one of my favourite actors Lord Richard Attenborough had passed away. So it was with some poignancy that I watched this durable classic today.

I can vividly remember watching In Which We Serve as a war film loving child and, having been used to more straightforward actioneers with beginnings, middles and ends, being really confused by the film's non linear, episodic narrative and propaganda tone.  It was all rather lost on me on my first viewing but it is one that became clearer and clearer and much loved as I grew older.

In Which We Serve is undoubtedly a propaganda movie. Made in the very heart of the war, the call went up at Two Cities Films for an ode to the Royal Navy (following the sinking of Lord Mountbatten's HMS Kelly in the Battle of Crete) from a well known scriptwriter and it was Noel Coward who answered the call and took on both directing (alongside a young David Lean who handled the action scenes) and  lead acting honours as well. Yes it's rather ludicrous to believe the dressing gown and cigarette holder, clipped bon mot utterer could really be the character of Captain Kinross, the tough and experienced naval officer of the HMS Torrin (even the studio believed his performance to be ''always interesting, if not quite convincing") but there's something rather wonderful, quaint and stirring about this Henry V/Churchill/kindly patrician amalgamation that his character ultimately is. He may not convince as a professional man of war, but his performance is spot on for the film's timely and important message of unity and faith in one another.

Class is an issue that cannot help but be raised in such a production, especially when we see such a cross section; from Coward and Celia Johnson's extremely posh couple sinking copious amounts of gin before going up to tuck the children into bed (!) to John Mills' amiably chipper working class hero Shorty Blake (that line of his, after an act of extreme valour; "Someone had to do it" still gets me) looking for love on leave and finding it in the shape of Kay Walsh, but the joy of In Which We Serve is we see its structure working seamlessly and hand in hand from officer down to ordinary seaman and stokers. Coward's message really is 'we're in this together' and it's really meant too. He doesn't expect or ask any of his subordinates to do something he would not do himself and, as such, you really feel you get the spirit of the war.

And then there's Richard Attenborough's turn as the young stoker who, when it comes to the crunch, finds his character doesn't cut the mustard. It's amazing to think he was just eighteen years old here and that, in a career spanning some truly great and diverse performances (though he would often return to the more nervy, cowardly roles too), it is this one - his film debut - that can still be so fondly remembered and held up with the affection and admiration it deserves. That impassioned scene in the pub, where he tries desperately to get drunk enough to drown his sorrows, and its subsequent pay off on the Torrin's raft, "Oh play another tune for God's sake!") is wonderfully credible. 

The co-direction of Coward and Lean make for a film that transcends the war movie genre. Partly that's because of its propaganda tone and the message that is inspiring enough to still mean something to this day, despite a more selfish individualistic tone creeping into our society as a whole, but also it's because of a certain element of artiness that both men shared. It makes for an unusual and distinctive quality production that raises itself above the more generic trappings. That David Lean would go on to direct another film, ostensibly a war movie, that is in fact about a whole lot more and is much more unusual, ambivalent and complicated than a mere genre movie could ever be is perhaps not unexpected. That film is of course Bridge on the River Kwai.

RIP Lord Attenborough.