"I started out drawing clear lines linking schoolmates to flatmates, Bullingdon buddies and policy wonks, but pretty soon exactly the same people started popping up in new guises — as fellow MPs, cabinet colleagues, party donors — and the lines started to veer into ever more deranged spirals as everyone turned out to be linked, several times over, to everyone else." Emily Hill on the rise and full of the Cameron chumocracy.
Ferdinand Mount reviews a new biography of Karl Marx: "By the end of his life, his was a name to strike terror into bourgeois hearts across Europe, which gave him no little satisfaction. Yet at his funeral in Highgate Cemetery there were only eleven mourners."
In 2013 the poet Geoffrey Hill, who died earlier this year, was interviewed by Sameer Rahim.
"As soon as I saw those huge rust-coloured bridges stretching across the Tyne I knew this was Jack’s manor. Tough, ruthless and uncompromising." Mike Hodges talks to Adam Scovell about Get Carter.
John Fleming tells the sad story of the fallen Blue Peter presenter Christopher Trace.
The book that "Get Carter" was based on is actually set in north Lincolnshire. Michael Caine's accent apart, the film translates well to Tyneside. My memory of this radio production of "Jack's Return Home" is that there was also a seediness which the film did not capture.
ReplyDeleteI suspect that the reason for the shelving of Ted Lewis's other work is that he was too anti-Establishment. Perhaps the rise of Corbyn will revive it.
Off to the book shelves to dig out Ted Lewis, a regular read over many years...
ReplyDeleteThe film moved location in order to capture reality: council corruption on Tyneside, although it could have moved to many other districts. T Dan Smith and John Poulson had not been exposed when the film was made but you'd be daft if you didn't make the link.
Mike Hodges picked a few local actors for minor parts. Alun Armstrong established his career on the back of it.