Joan Littlewood (1963)

Surprisingly hard going – although it has its place in history as the only dramatic feature directed for the cinema by Joan Littlewood.   She worked with Stephen Lewis on this adaptation of his stage work Sparrers Can’t Sing – a success for Theatre Workshop (and then in the West End) in 1960 – but she didn’t find a way of marrying the realism of the East End locations (in Limehouse and Stratford) with the prevailing acting style.  (If the intention was to isolate the two elements from each other, it’s hard to see why – given the importance of local community in the material.  In any case, a few of the cast do seem naturally rooted in their setting.)  The Theatre Workshop players were retained for the film version but their performances are often disappointingly ‘set’.  There are moves which look as if they might have been inventive on stage but which haven’t been rethought for the screen.  There are characterisations which look to have been worked out in the theatre run and not developed or refreshed (Roy Kinnear, Brian Murphy), and others which it’s hard to believe weren’t grim at the first time of asking (Barbara Ferris, Lewis himself, Victor Spinetti).

The story takes place in the course of a single day.  Charlie (James Booth), a sailor, comes home from sea.  He finds his house razed to the ground.  He can’t find his wife Maggie (Barbara Windsor), who’s now living with Bert (George Sewell), a bus driver, and has a new baby (there’s a running debate about who the father is).    Will Maggie choose to stay with Bert or go back to Charlie?   James Booth, although his acting isn’t free of bits of what look like theatre business, is physically relaxed and the strongest screen actor:  the camera seems to be revealing Charlie’s character rather than recording the actor’s projecting it.   It’s hard to dissociate Barbara Windsor from her more familiar film persona because she looks and sounds and (especially) moves as usual – but there’s depth to her work.  She’s convincingly inconstant and volatile in her feelings for the two men, which makes it suspenseful as to whom she’ll choose.  (It’s clear too that the ending of the film is where it happens to stop and not an indication of the long-term future).   George Sewell was a very good character actor.  He may be too quietly naturalistic here, given the storyline, but he’s a welcome relief from the busyness of much of the acting going on around him.

The panel discussion of Joan Littlewood’s legacy in the first part of the BFI birthday tribute that preceded the screening of Sparrows Can’t Sing stressed repeatedly that the original was all about the destruction of community, especially through the demolition of houses to make way for tower blocks.    This doesn’t come across strongly in the film – partly because the characterisation of these East Enders is so insistent that they seem impregnable.  One of the best sequences I took to be, in part, an early celebration of increasing ethnic diversity:   Charlie, in search of Maggie, climbs several flights of stairs and finds an Asian father and son on one floor, a group of Africans on the next.   This raises an issue that the screenplay understandably steers clear of wrestling with:  much of the indigenous population would have seen Commonwealth immigration as itself a symptom of the decline of local identity and tradition.   There are other respects too in which the film is striking because the behaviour it describes is now accepted as unacceptable – Sparrows is cheerfully matter of fact about Charlie’s propensity for hitting Maggie in their earlier life together.

The cast also includes, among others, Avis Bunnage, Harry H Corbet, Yootha Joyce, Fanny Carby and Murray Melvin.  Corbett is striking in a cameo as a market stallholder.  Melvin is too eccentric for a juvenile lead role, even a quirky one like this, but he’s still good to watch because he’s so physically and vocally extraordinary.  As a nosy neighbour high in the tower blocks, Rita Webb is wonderfully funny and verbally rhythmical in her few minutes on screen.   Gerry Raffles makes a fleeting appearance as a lorry driver.

6 October 2008