New Town Utopia (2017)

"The new towns can be experiments in design as well as in living"

So said Lewis Silkin MP, voiced here by Jim Broadbent in this, Christopher Ian Smith's heartfelt and absorbing documentary film which is, in turn, both a paean to and an indictment of Basildon, Essex.

Having had experience of life in a new town (specifically Stevenage) I can totally relate to this film's love/hate relationship with its subject matter. New towns fascinate me (I produced a Letterboxd list featuring films set in them) possessing as they do a uniquely British sense of optimism and decline. The new towns act of 1946 was just one of the many progressive steps Clem Attlee's socialist postwar government took once they came to power. Their bold ambition for a better, more egalitarian Great Britain was to ensure that, unlike the governments following the Great War of 1914-18, the promise of 'homes fit for heroes' really were made good on. Inner city slums, with their poor hygiene, social failings and irreparable blitz damage, were to be cleared as per the recommendations of the 1944 Abercrombie Plan for London, which proposed the rehousing of up to 500,000 to eight new towns built upon greenfield sites within 50 miles of the capital. It was a Utopian vision for the future that promised modern, single family social (aka council) housing, easy and abundant access to places of education, arts and culture for all, as well as similar 'on your doorstep' access the countryside, reliable local amenities, good transport links and full employment (at least for the men of the family) with industrial and clerical opportunities encouraged to develop around these 'satellite towns'. In postwar Britain, new towns were a glimpse of the promising future; preserving the very best aspects of community the slums of London's East End had possessed with the forward thinking aims of tomorrow.

Utopia is of course a vision, and not everyone's vision is the same. Futurism is not to everyone's taste and beauty (and art) is in the eye of the beholder. The experimental design Silkin encouraged from his architects and town planners did not, indeed could not, hope to appeal to all, and mistakes were made in this enthusiastic desire to build the world of tomorrow. But this wasn't the biggest problems faced by the new towns; as new turned to old, the real problem became all too clear.

Governments change. Not every politician shares the same appetite for collective progression that Silkin and those others in Attlee's cabinet enjoyed and believed important for our society. The shifting sands of power highlighted the subsidence that a new town is metaphorically built upon. Declining standards in buildings and the environment began to rise as councils became less convinced by their duty to repair or preserve and, when Margaret Thatcher (a Tory PM who didn't believe there was such a thing as society, let alone the progressive, socialist Utopian one that the postwar Labour government strove to build and work for) began to place the cost of everything at the very heart of her policies this neglect became more and more apparent. The art and culture that Silkin placed at the heart of these new towns for the betterment of their residents and the generations to come, were considered 'non essential'. One by one, theatres, parks, art centres and leisure centres were closed down for not being 'cost effective' as councils could no longer commit to providing such services for little or no fee. If similar services existed elsewhere for a price, and if residents could afford them, they should use them instead. Capitalism was the key to Thatcher's government (and continues to have been for successive governments of both Tory and Labour) and selfishness was openly encouraged. Her right-to-buy scheme was the death knell for Silkin's vision, as residents were persuaded to purchase their own homes. As one former Basildon councillor says in the film, the problem with selling off social housing is that eventually there will no longer be social housing and that is exactly the problem we have in the UK now. Not enough houses and no communities. Industries and business have gone to the wall and retailers begin a mass exodus, leaving charity shops, pawnbrokers and bookmakers behind. A new town like Basildon becomes a ghost town, yesterday's dream. But what happened to Basildon and all the other new towns is happening right across the UK (its happening to my town and that's recently celebrated its 150th year) and will continue to do so for as long as government places capitalism and neoliberalism at the heart of its policies.

New Town Utopia isn't just about Basildon. It's not even just about new towns. It's about the country as a whole and how the promised future was squandered, leaving us with the problems of the present.

Take Me Home (1989)

As far as I know Take Me Home, Tony Marchant's three-part drama about a middle aged married cab driver who falls for a young unhappily married woman was only ever shown the once - in 1989. It's weird though because, though I was only ten years old then, a lot of it has stuck with me; that's the power of good tele. It's never been released to DVD (I'm guessing there is an issue with music rights: Dusty Springfield and Deacon Blue feature heavily) but there are very good copies available on the bootleg circuit and so this week, almost thirty years later, I got to watch it again. 

"This used to be a town, now they call it a development..."

Shot in Telford, Take Me Home is set in the fictional Woodsleigh Abbots, an industrial town in the late '80s now experiencing major redevelopment, extending residential areas and roads to focus primarily on the new business park where a Chinese computer technology firm InfoCo has set up home. This social and economic transformation has attracted many white collar workers, who have moved up from London to set up home ("We didn't so much get on our bikes as drive off in our Vauxhall Astras" one Thatcherite yuppie is heard to quip at a dinner party, referencing Norman Tebbit infamous 1981 speech) One such person is Martin (Reece Dinsdale) who has convinced his lonely wife Kathy (Maggie O'Neill) that InfoCo and the town will be a fresh start for them. He tries to integrate them into their new home via badminton and dinner parties with his co-workers and their wives but Kathy is often absent, either mentally or physically.

Tom (Keith Barron) is a former tool maker now trying to make a living as a minicab driver. He is married to Liz (Annette Crosbie) who also has a new job, working in the canteen at InfoCo. Unlike Martin and Kathy, they live in a traditional 50's built semi in the old part of town and have a grown up daughter who has flown the nest to start her own family. Liz has taken to her new role like a duck to water, enjoying the social interaction with the newcomers (even though it is mostly one way on her part - the yuppie workers, including Martin, are all too arrogant to talk to the likes of her) and the camaraderie of her co-workers who are all female and of a similar age. In contrast, Tom is struggling as a minicab driver; he doesn't know the new estates and new roads and he is concerned by the technological encroachment he sees upon traditional industry, having left his 'job for life' when his duties required him to start using computers. He works most evenings, driving around listening to his Dusty Springfield tape and picking up fares, faced with the irony of trying to get to know the town he has spent his life in. It is one such evening that he picks up the distressed Kathy, who stops his cab and tearfully asks him to "Take me home".

Tom's initially fatherly concern for bank worker Kathy soon changes to mild contempt when she tells him she has recently had an abortion at Martin's request and when he has to pick her and a worse-for-wear Martin up from a staff party. He tells Liz that this new couple are trouble, confirming his quiet suspicions that the new town and all its changes aren't necessarily for good. However, Kathy confiding in him about her marriage and her unhappiness leads to them meeting secretly, behind their respective partners' backs and, despite the significant age-gap and social differences, a a mutual attraction starts to develop which turns to an obsessive, passionate affair. 

What I really like about Take Me Home is that Marchant approaches the tidal change of '80s Britain through his central characters. Tom represents the skilled labour being left behind and cast on the scrapheap by Thatcher's government and technological advances, whilst Kathy represents those changes. They are both completely different: she is upwardly mobile, he is stagnating, she represents city living, he is small town, she is new and he is old, and their age-gap of course plays into that, along with their musical tastes - he loves Dusty, she prefers Deacon Blue (their song The Very Thing is the show's theme tune) and the pair exchange tapes. But at the same time they are both kindred spirits in that neither of them can adjust to the world around them and they each feel dissatisfied by it. Their affair points towards the breaking down of barriers, an ill fated attempt for the old world to meet the social and economic encroachments upon it, and this metaphor is also used elsewhere with Take Me Home's secondary characters; Liz's co-worker at the canteen is having an affair with their young manager and her husband, a fellow cabbie and friend of Tom's, is oblivious.  

Beautifully written by Marchant, Take Me Home is directed with great skill by Jane Howell, a female director who cut her teeth on single dramas such as the BBC's Play For Today, Screenplay and Screen Two dating back to the mid '70s. Female directors were sadly all too rare in house during this period, but I'm grateful that it was a female director who got to helm Marchant's script - unlike many adultery orientated dramas, Take Me Home does not indulge in the kind of steamy, nude encounters that I imagine a male director would push for. Sex scenes do occur, but they're kept brief. For Howell and Marchant its the dialogue that matters, and they treat their audiences as mature and intelligent people. At a time when we're still hearing about many (male) directors, writers and producers opting for needless, gratuitous nudity, it's refreshing to see that something from twenty-nine years earlier was ahead of the curve and rather more effective to boot. 

Take Me Home is a vital document on Thatcher's Britain and a bloody good story well told. I think it is the late Keith Barron's finest performance, and all the cast deliver the goods.

Serious Charge (1959)

Serious Charge (also known as, amongst other things, A Touch of Hell) is a 1959 feature from director Terence Young that was shot in the new town of Stevenage, doubling as the fictional town of Bellington. The plot sees the residents of the town welcome its new vicar (Anthony Quayle) with open arms until a young delinquent (Andrew Ray, the little boy from The Yellow Balloon all grown up) spreads malicious gossip that turns everyone against him.

Serious Charge is perhaps best known for being the film that provided Cliff Richard with his cinematic debut. Britain's answer to Elvis Presley (as he was then known) takes a minor role as the kid brother of Ray's character, who is saved from a life of crime by Quayle's vicar, and gets to sing snatches of three numbers, including his future number 1 hit, Living Doll. Overall however, he's pretty superfluous to the film and simply serves to add teddy boy colour to the coffee bar scenes which also feature an uncredited Jess Conrad and Philip Lowrie, who would go on to play Dennis Tanner in Coronation Street the following year. 

The real meat of the film lies in the vendetta the dangerous and vindictive Ray has against Quayle. When the latter discovers that the boy had impregnated a young girl who later dies, he tries to get him to face the consequences and atone for his behaviour, however Ray pulls a cruel trick that sees him claim the vicar has tried to 'interfere' with him - a timely frame-up that relies on the staged aftermath being witnessed by Sarah Churchill's character Hester, who has previously had her romantic overtures towards Quayle gently rejected. As the old adage has it, 'hell hath no fury like a woman scorned', and pretty soon the whole town is believing the established Hester's word against the previously popular new clergyman.

A film from several decades ago handling what is such a topical theme in today's terms is one that automatically makes you sit up and pay attention, but unfortunately Serious Charge takes a long time to actually get there and the first forty minutes are something of a chore, being a mix of polite drawing room conversation between the older members of the cast and painfully dated sequences featuring the 'hip' teenagers accompanied by Cliff's singing. When the plot does kick in though, the film delivers something that is quite watchable as Quayle's dignified man of the cloth has to turn the other cheek amidst the evil gossip surrounding him.

If I hadn't known this film was shot in Stevenage I doubt I'd have been able to guess, as the vast majority of the action takes place in the old town, giving the film much more of a village feel than a new town feel, despite the occasional reference to new towns and the growing urban patch that the church must attempt to reach within the script. Even the town's high street, which features heavily, is barely recognisable given the passage of time. It's a world away from the town as depicted in Boston Kickout some thirty five years later, which is more in keeping with my own experience of the place.

You can watch it here

Boston Kickout (1996)

"There's loads to do in Stevenage...if you like concrete"

"I fucking hate this town"

Stevenage. No offence to anyone who hails from there, but it really is a shithole. I can just about say this, as I used to go out with a girl from there and visited its grim concrete desolation row regularly. It's telling that the two most famous films made in Stevenage, Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush and this, chart the decline from optimism to pessimism of these government sponsored urban landscapes that were built upon the rural and undeveloped areas of our land in the postwar period to help accommodate the 'overspill' from deprived inner city areas. In the earlier film the mood is bright and breezy for our young freewheeling protagonists, but by the time we reach the 1990s of Boston Kickout, the youth on display are emphatically disillusioned. The film, from writer/director Paul Hills, is a semi-autobiographical tale about his own experiences growing up in the town.

Phil (John Simm) moved from London to Stevenage as a child with his father (Derek Martin) in the 1980s shortly after witnessing his mother's suicide. Now it is 1991 and Phil and his friends, Ted (Andrew Lincoln), Matt (Nathan Valente) and Steve (Richard Hanson), have just left school and are caught in that limbo period of the 'final' summer; waiting for the exam results that will shape their adult lives. Ted, effortlessly cool, is keen to break out of the stifling atmosphere of his hometown and promptly disappears in dramatic fashion on that first night of freedom - perhaps because he knows that if you stick around any longer you'll end up like Steve's older brother, Robert (a scene-stealing Marc Warren), a wild skinhead who revels in his small town legend; "I've been thrown out of every club in Stevenage!" he gleefully proclaims after the bouncers chuck him into the street for glassing someone. "There's only two!" Phil points out, but it does little to deflate his sense of achievement.

Caught between these two extremes is Phil and Simm's performance of understated charm serves as the perfect balance. Feeling somewhat lost without the routine of school and with his best mate Ted AWOL, Phil drifts through a dead-end summer job at a bakery whilst indulging in his pastime of photography, not really knowing what he wants to do with his life, or what he wants from it. The developments of his friends - Matt gets engaged and Steve's behaviour becomes increasingly strange - provides him with some surprising distractions, but he only gets something of his own when his Shona, his outgoing Irish cousin (Emer McCourt) visits, leading to romance. This too however, proves to be a momentary distraction and, when his father attempts suicide, Phil must ultimately make a decision to either accept his lot and become absorbed by his peers and the culture around him, or break out and seek to achieve his potential. 

Boson Kickout is a sadly overlooked film, perhaps because it was quickly lost in the wave of more successful and better remembered films such as Trainspotting and Human Traffic, which also starred Simm, an effective poster boy for the Britpop 90s, and featured some of the same production team, including a producer credit Emer McCourt. It's a shame, because I think overall Boston Kickout is a more contemplative and mature offering than the enjoyably cartoonish antics of Human Traffic, with themes that are perhaps less dated, and is certainly better than the Trainspotting wannabes that followed in its wake. It's easy to see why Simm, Lincoln and Warren went on to bigger and better things, but sadly Valente and Hanson did not, and their somewhat anonymous performances perhaps tell that tale. 

I'd recommend the film for anyone who grew up or came of age in the 1990s, it's choice soundtrack (Oasis, The Stone Roses, Primal Scream etc) and the fashions (I was amused to see that Ted dressed exactly like I did in the '90s and the early '00s - I had exactly the same leather jacket and a fondness for obscure T-shirts, and given that I have short dark, wavy/curly hair just like Lincoln's, it was quite an out-of-body experience!) will certainly bring back memories, and if you lived in a new town or a dead end town, you'll appreciate that sense of being young and alive but being held back and a little scared of taking the leap. It's not perfect, but it is a funny and touching coming-of-age drama that I had a good time with.

Oh and the title? It refers to the game that Phil et al played as kids, jumping over the fences of neighbouring homes and trashing their gardens.

Kinky Boots : Adrienne Posta

Pint sized blonde poppet Adrienne Posta in a publicity still for shithole Stevenage set 60s romcom Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush (1968)

The World's End (2013)

Watching this brilliant film for the first time tonight, I have developed a theory regarding the often lukewarm responses I have previously seen towards this, the last in the Pegg/Frost/Wright 'Cornetto Trilogy' of films.

The reason why some do not rate this quite highly is I may feel due to an age/generational thing. 

Warning this blog post contains...

Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz were vibrant balls out movies. Fresh and innovative, they spoke across the generations, specifically the 20s/early 30s slackers I grant you, but they also appealed to kids obsessed with zombies and comedic violence. As spoofs of such genres they offered little more and they didn't need to; they were perfect and did just what was required of them. 

But The World's End is a film about a different generation, the generation Pegg et al now find themselves in, a generation I'm about 5 or so years shy of, and yet I found myself empathising utterly. Perhaps because I was literally a child of the 80s and 90s and perhaps because I was of the Spaced generation. As such, I feel the large teen following who have grew up with Shaun and Fuzz were a bit surprised and bemused to find an elegiac tone to the finale, but I think it is decidedly fitting in two ways; one, of course they should concern themselves with their own age and experience and two, a finale of anything is just the right time for an elegy.

I loved the characters, I know those characters. I hate to say it but I saw a little bit of myself in the overcoat wearing permanent adolescent that is Gary King. I'm 34, I'm single and I've watched my friends fall in love, marry, buy a house, have kids, split up and divorce over the years whilst I remain in a loop at that first category. And I loved the allusions and references that litter the film. It's something the trio have been doing ever since Spaced and I do believe it reached quite a pinnacle here with references not just to their previous works but also to King Arthur - as any student of Malory will surely appreciate 'the once and future king' tag so in tune with the surnames - the folkloric social myths of pub crawls and drinking/pub vernacular throughout ('empties' and the fear of well loved placed being 'starbucked') all played out against plot trappings worthy of John Wyndham. I also liked the subtle hints and digs towards the new towns of Herts the film was shot in and how, in the final moments, Goth rock loving King's little band resembles Stevenage's finest (not much that is fine in that town eh?) The Fields of Nephilim! Which also reminds me; Fucking excellent soundtrack....seriously, the tracks of my years. When The Sundays kicked in I was in heaven...shame Pierce Brosnan had to drawl on all over it mind with his voice like a goose farting in the fog.

I also wonder if this one, dealing as it does so specifically with British life harking back to the early 90s, alienated (pun not intended) some fans across the pond who may have felt lost at some of the references, pub culture or the soundtrack.

It's not a perfect movie, and I can see why some are critical, I'm not sure the Terry Gilliam-esque finale in which our heroes stand before the disembodied voice of Bill Nighy as a greater alien intelligence (who has, rather satisfyingly, been responsible for all our technological advancements) truly works and I actually felt less concerned for the fates of some characters than I did back in Shaun strangely. I also feel that, on the whole, Frost always plays a better fool than Pegg does. He seems more suited to the role of the guy who will lead someone astray, so the comedic persona swap here wasn't as successful or believable, though it was perhaps understandable - Pegg now being a bigger box office name may mean a desire for him to have the better gags/more to do.

I waited some time before watching this, largely because of some reviews and word of mouth, and now I rather wish I hadn't. As with Shaun of The Dead and Hot Fuzz before it (and specifically Shaun, as this feels the closest to that movie, indeed it could easily have been a sequel to it - Shaun, dumped remains adrift in his adult juvenalia) it's a rip roaring comedic ride. It's the end of an era though, and perhaps seeing Steve Oram and Alice Lowe in cameos here - having previously starred in and written the Edgar Wright produced, Ben Wheatley comedy Sightseers points to the next era of Britcom on film.

I Start Counting (1969)

Remember the photo of Jenny Agutter I posted yesterday? Well that was from the film I Start Counting, which I'm going to talk about now. See? Everything is carefully planned here! 

It's a largely forgotten movie from the late 1960s which is a shame. Even more of a shame is the fact that it seems to have been wilfully forgotten in some quarters because its plot of a fourteen year old schoolgirl's sexual awakening is deemed moderately controversial, perhaps largely because the character is played by Jenny Agutter who was still only sixteen/seventeen at the time. 

To be fair, I think we're living in a cotton wool society if we can't accept that most fourteen year olds are discovering their sexuality. In fact, I would say most fourteen year olds today have probably already discovered and experimented. I Start Counting does not deserve the controversy it has garnered as it's all rather winsomely handled and, unlike Baby Love, (which I blogged about on Saturday, see? I tod you nothing is left to chance here!) the sexual awakening Agutter experiences isn't used to manipulate or for sordid salacious effect (though admittedly, the publicity photoshoot, an example above, does seem to veer towards that aspect, but I stress the film does not) In fact it's a very naive, innocent and foolishly romantic burgeoning sexuality which sees her devote all her feelings to her 32 year old step brother played by Bryan Marshall. 

It's an intriguing film that plays out at a pleasing pace suggestive of a half waking dream, helped enormously by the soft textured cinematography employed (though to be honest, that may have just been the rather washed out print I saw) and the flimsy fragile theme sung by Lindsay Moore. It's well directed by David Greene from a novel by Audrey Erskine Lindop. Jenny Agutter plays the central character of Wynne with a great wistful air and she's helped enormously by Clare Sutcliffe as her more earthy friend Corrinne, who provides some good comedy. Their relationship as two schoolgirl friends is utterly believable and completely timeless. There's a pleasing and understated Alice In Wonderland motif that the film seems to want to draw comparison with itself to the classic literature, being that they both focus on a girl on the cusp from childhood to maturity. Naturally, with Wynne's sexual awakening also comes maturity and the facing up to and discovering of the harsh realities of life, a million miles away from Wynne's romantic daydreaming. 

The film's crux is that Wynne as well as secretly harbouring desires for her stepbrother, also suspects him of being responsible for several recent murders of young girls in the town, so she sets out to surreptitiously investigate and follow him to find out the truth. It's the kind of plot that would still be perfectly serviceable in an ITV1 drama these days, albeit with significantly less charm than here, and of course is totally dependant on anyone having the balls to address a fourteen year old having sexual urges for her 32 year old stepbrother.

The film was shot on location in the new town of Bracknell, Herts. I'm no fan of new towns as previous posts here and personal experience will prove, but it's interesting to note that this film depicts one pretty much as the town planners originally considered them; clinically white (Agutter's adopted family live in a completely white modern build home, stark contrast to the cottage she continuously runs away to, earmarked for demolition) ultra clean and almost complete that has the ambition and desire to be a future idyll. It's a world away from how Bracknell was depicted just three years later in Sidney Lumet's excellent The Offence (again, previously blogged about) a failed crumbling and empty wasteland with no community spirit. Of course both films have their own agenda when depicting the town, and as much as The Offence needs a setting that mirrors the festering wound that is Sean Connery's character's damaged psyche, I Start Counting is a film that possibly needs to paint its environs as progressive, to look to the future as much as Wynne's oncoming adulthood. Indeed even the murders that have occurred in the course of film are said to happen in or around the Common, where the old houses are. Also of note is that Wynne's own former home was the scene of a tragedy which she has flashbacks too. The future, the new town, is a better place.

Oh and there's also a brief appearance from Bruce Robinson's old pal Michael Feast as the token pill popping hippy (not a million miles from his part in Private Road) and Agutter gets a delightfully charming little drunk scene.

Jagger In Jail

Jagger In Jail was a play by Nigel Smith broadcast on Radio 4 last week as part of their History Plays series.

Starring Kayvan Novak (Facejacker) as Mick Jagger and Blake Harrison (The Inbetweeners) as Jim.

It is 1967, the summer of love and Mick Jagger, lead singer of the Rolling Stones, is in prison starting his three month sentence for drug possession. His trial - and particularly his sentence - has both scandalised and split public opinion.

Jagger in Jail imagines the conversation that might have taken place between Mick and a cellmate, Jim, during what turned out to be his only night behind bars. As the night passes Jim and Mick find that while they have a fair bit in common, society's plans for them could not be more different. And Jim isn't too happy about it....

It was a very interesting half hour play, well written and touching upon a lot of interesting ideas about the 60s and the state of the country at the time, specifically how opportunities were available for some and not for others. It transpires that Mick and Jim had gone to school together yet their lives could not be more different. Mick Jagger feels the counter revolution has worked, but lives in fear of losing his relevancy - something which may well have been playing on his mind with the notion of three months away from the limelight - and the world moving on. He even complains at the futility of playing live to audiences screaming too loud to hear. Whilst Jim already understandably feels left behind; he's due out the following morning, but after two and a half years inside, prison has become his home now. He knows the world has moved on and what captures the imagination of those outside, such as The Stones, seem facile compared to him. He's bitter. The England he sees now disgusts, terrifies and alienates him, and there's some great attacks about the already burgeoning mythology of 'Swinging London' and the horrors of jerry built new towns like Redditch, with their tower blocks and roads...

''Roads, we're always building bloody roads. It's never worth the journey when you get there. There'll just be another municipal flower bed, a mural and a supermarket'' - Jim

Jim can't understand how the rest of Europe seems to have progressed correctly, especially Germany, rebuilt after WWII whilst his own country still bears the marks of bomb damage between the new builds. When the topic turns to Scandinavia - the ultimate chic of architecture and design - Jagger points out...

"Helskinki doesn't have The King's Road''

To which Jim counters...

"Most of this country hasn't got The King's Road! Redditch certainly ain't. There's about 200 of you who've got it...the rest of us are just looking on" 

It's a two hander play and for my money, Harrison owns it. He nails his character and breaks free of the radio trappings to suggest movement in his performance, something that is sadly lacking from Novak; you can almost see him reading his script. Primarily an impressionist, it is perhaps telling that he is concentrating more on imitating Mick Jagger's voice rather than giving a performance.

A great social commentary, satisfying with hindsight too Jagger In Jail, for its setting alone, is often reminiscent of an episode of Porridge or Simon Gray's play Cell Mates.

Warm Leatherette

'Crash' the short film by Harley Cokliss (later Cokeliss) based on JG Ballard's works and starring the author himself, alongside Gabrielle Drake.

Originally transmitted Friday 12th February 1971 at 8:30pm on BBC2. Check out the architecturally dystopic horror of shit new town Watford and its Harlequin Shopping Centre multi storey.

Ballard would later push the idea of sex, death and the motorcar further of course, and in 1973, released his shocking seminal novel of the same name, Crash. This was later made into a controversial movie by Cronenberg in 1996, as well as inspiring the music of The Normal (Warm Leatherette, 1978) and a subsequent cover by Grace Jones (who would later continue the automotive erotica with Pull Up To The Bumper in 1981) The Creatures (Miss The Girl, 1983) and The Manic Street Preachers (Mausoleum, 1994)

Drive carefully ;)

A New Career In A New Town

Sean Connery had called time on James Bond in 1967, thoroughly sick of the role that made his name and determined to prove himself as an actor.


However following George Lazenby, the enfant terrible of Eon's dismissal of any further Bond films in 1971, United Artists had to lure Connery back to the role. They did this by pledging to finance and produce any two projects of Connery's choosing. 


Which is what took Connery to the new town of Bracknell in 1972 for The Offence

At the risk of sounding like Sir John Betjeman, I hate new towns. I have never been to one I liked. 

Such ugly bleak architectural crime chiefly occurred in the post war years to clear out slums and bomb damaged areas, re-homing communities in concrete warrens and walkways that had previously been rich green and pleasant land. It's primarily a South of England offence (geddit?) however the North did suffer some (Runcorn, Skelmersdale and Wythenshawe) but the main examples are south bound;  Milton Keynes, Stevenage, Welwyn Garden City, Hatfield,  Basildon and of course our setting here, Bracknell in Berkshire.  

Grim hmm? 

Apologies to any Bracknell or new town readers! 

However, the locale suits the mood of the film. Connery stars as DS Johnson, a hard nosed policeman of twenty years service, hunting a child rapist and killer. He's tormented by all the evil and horror he has seen in his line of work and as the dark thoughts start to seep out into the open, the bleak, brutal and sparse architecture around him becomes a character in its own right; too new and too fresh looking to be anything but innocent, but too ugly to be anything but evil. It's a claustrophobic unrelentingly hard and grim film and as we see Connery traipsing through the rain drenched concrete precinct, harassing homosexuals and known kiddie fiddlers or heading home to his tower block flat at gone two in the morning to his plain wife played by Vivien Merchant (as he asks of her "Why aren't you beautiful? You're not even pretty") we feel he's as much a prisoner as any of the felons he has captured.

Balding, bullish, haunted and weary; married to a dowdy woman and living in a drab tower block in a new town...James Bond he isn't!

The film was directed by the excellent Sidney Lumet (who had got a similarly brilliant performance from Connery in The Hill) and based on a stage play by Z Cars scriptwriter John Hopkins. It's a heavy film but with dialogue that crackles and spits like bacon in a frying pan. A solid police procedural that doesn't flinch from portraying what demons our public servants must face and one that hasn't dated, standing up splendidly today. For my money it's the best film Connery did, yet on release it bombed and failed to find an audience. The result being, UA decided not to fund Connery's next project an adaptation of Macbeth giving Roman Polanski a clear field to push ahead with his own version of Shakespeare's classic.

I'll not give too much away about the film, because I feel it's one that needs to be seen and to discuss it will give a lot away. Needless to say it's a brilliant psychological exercise that really heats up when the police arrest a man they feel responsible for the rape and kidnapping of a twelve year old girl played brilliantly by Ian Bannen, who forces Connery's character to take a good look within himself.

It's a film with a genuinely unnerving tense atmosphere. Once watched, never forgotten.