Interracial romance. Teenage pregnancy. Homosexuality. An unmarried mother. In 1961, A Taste of Honey put subjects British cinema usually kept firmly out of sight right at the centre of the screen.
This week we're revisiting A Taste of Honey (1961), Tony Richardson's landmark British New Wave drama starring Rita Tushingham, Dora Bryan, Murray Melvin and Paul Danquah.
Adapted from Shelagh Delaney's groundbreaking play, the film follows Jo, a Salford teenager living with her neglectful mother Helen. When Jo becomes pregnant by Jimmy, a Black sailor, she forms an unconventional household with Geoffrey, her gay friend—until Helen's return threatens the little family they've created.
But to understand why A Taste of Honey caused such a stir, we're going back to the Britain that produced it.
We look at the respectable world of post-war “consensual cinema”, the arrival of the Angry Young Men, Free Cinema and kitchen-sink realism, and the changing representation of working-class life that was also appearing on television in Coronation Street.
Then there are the subjects the film dared to tackle.
We're discussing interracial relationships and racism in 1960s Britain, the stigma surrounding unmarried pregnancy and “illegitimacy”, and Geoffrey's remarkably sympathetic portrayal at a time when sex between men was still criminalised in England and Wales. We also look at the Wolfenden Report and the political debate that would eventually lead to partial decriminalisation in 1967.
We explore the film's depiction of Salford and working-class Northern England, its music and performances, its international controversy and censorship, and the major recognition it received at the BAFTA Awards.
And, more than six decades later, we ask the question at the heart of The Problematic Gaze: how does A Taste of Honey hold up today?
Is it an uncomfortable relic of 1961—or does Jo and Geoffrey's makeshift little family still feel surprisingly modern?
Grab yourself a taste of honey and join us as we head back to the beginning of the Swinging Sixties… before Britain had actually started swinging.