British Films

In the hit 1990 film The Krays, the East End gangsters were portrayed as “identical twins who rose from poverty to power”, “from obscurity to fame” and “from the back streets to the attention of the world”. They were “special” boys, the film claimed, who loved their mother.

But the producer now says he regrets glamorising them and is making another film that will portray the mobsters as they really were.

Ray Burdis said he wants to put the record straight: “They weren’t folk heroes. They were just a pair of cowardly psychopathic bullies, who terrorised the East End of London in the 1960s.”

He said that films such as The Godfather, the Marlon Brando classic about the mafia, had made it fashionable to idolise gangsters.

The Krays, which starred brothers Gary and Martin Kemp in critically acclaimed performances, was a huge box-office success, taking more than £100m globally.

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The new film, which he is writing and directing, is titled Last Kings of London. It will be much darker, depicting swinging 1960s London, “where corruption plagued the police force and crime families ruled the streets”, he said.

If there is anyone who knows what is happening behind the scenes in the saga over who will become the next James Bond, it’s Jennifer Salke, the global head of Amazon MGM Studios – home of box-office crown ­jewels including the 007 and Rocky franchises.

Salke was part of the Amazon team that sealed an audacious $8.5bn deal in 2021 to buy the 100-year-old MGM and its celebrated library of 4,000 film titles and 17,000 hours of TV programming – ranging from Gone with the Wind and The Hobbit to The Handmaid’s Tale and Legally Blonde.

Nevertheless, it is the future of the evergreen spy that remains the hottest topic of conversation among movie fans.

The problem is that control of James Bond – at 62 years old, one of the world’s longest-running film franchises – remains largely with Eon Productions in the UK, which is run by Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson. Eon’s strict control even extends to who plays Bond.

Intense media interest has sparked a flurry of speculation naming almost any male actor who might fit the profile – from Idris Elba to Aaron Taylor-Johnson and, more recently, Barry Keoghan, the star of the Amazon hit Saltburn.

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Salke is neither shaken nor stirred by the hiatus. “There are a lot of ideas [about potential actors] that have popped up that I thought are interesting,” says Salke. “I think there are a lot of different ways we can go. We have a good and close relationship with Eon and Barbara and Michael. We are not looking to disrupt the way those wonderful films are made. For us, we are taking their lead.

“The global audience will be patient. We don’t want too much time between films, but we are not concerned at this point.”

Salke also gives her version of reports alleging that, early on, she got on the wrong side of Broccoli for raising the idea of a Bond TV series.

“It was never really raised in that way,” says Salke, who is conducting the interview via video at an unearthly hour in the morning from her home in Los Angeles.

“When you are looking at iconic intellectual property like that, you look at what the entire long-term future might be. Of course you look at every facet.”

Three-time Oscar winner Daniel Day-Lewis is ending his retirement from acting to star in his son’s directorial debut.

The 67-year-old British actor quit acting after starring in Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2017 film Phantom Thread, and has largely stayed out of public life since.

But he is now set to star in a film titled Anemone, directed by his son Ronan Day-Lewis, US independent production company Focus Features confirmed on Tuesday.

The film will feature actors including Sean Bean, Samantha Morton, Samuel Bottomley and Safia Oakley-Green, and is currently shooting in Manchester.

Father and son wrote the screenplay, which “explores the intricate relationships between fathers, sons and brothers, and the dynamics of familial bonds”, Focus Features said.

The Paddington films have always been imbued with a deep love of cinema. Paul King’s Paddington and Paddington 2 revelled in creating handcrafted textures, both beautifully shot and making nods to classic slapstick comedies, prison escape dramas, and soundstage musicals. Next, Paddington is venturing out of London – make way for Paddington In Peru, a threequel that sees Douglas Wilson make his directorial debut, taking the reins from King, and sending our young furry hero (and the Brown family) on an Amazonian adventure. That change of location means an influx of new cinematic touchstones.

Notably, Wilson mentions an influence from Werner Herzog’s jungle-traversing Aguirre, The Wrath Of God, and Fitzcarraldo. Yes, in a Paddington movie. It comes with the Peruvian territory – literally. “Peru has this incredible variety of landscapes, crazy geology, especially the Andes and the mysterious Incan side,” the director tells Empire. “If you’ve seen [Werner Herzog’s] Aguirre, The Wrath Of God, we go up into similar landscapes. And the people are incredibly friendly.” Part of the mission here is to portray that sense of place and culture. “Obviously there are mopeds and mobile phones and all that, but they do still seem to wear traditional-looking clothes in the rural Andes,” says Wilson. “So I tried to show some Peruvian culture; a Peruvian legend underlies our whole story.” And since Paddington In Peru features singing nuns (including Olivia Colman’s Reverend Mother), expect a bit of The Sound Of Music and Black Narcissus in the mix.

On Sunday, the Toronto film festival will hand out its prizes and roll up its red carpet, a week after the Venice film festival did the same. This means only one thing: the start of Oscar season.

And, as the dust settles on these prestige launchpads, pundits have started to notice that there’s something remarkably similar about three of the key best actor contenders. They’re British. They’re former pin-ups now hovering around 60. And they’re all awards bridesmaids, so far unfeted by Oscar and long overdue for podium toasting.

Of the three, Ralph Fiennes looks the strongest bet. Now 61, Fiennes has won rave reviews for his performance as a troubled cardinal in classy pulp thriller Conclave, adapted from the Robert Harris bestseller and directed by Edward Berger, whose All Quiet on the Western Front won four Oscars from nine nominations two years ago (and swept the board at the Baftas).

Despite his status as one of the most acclaimed actors of the age, Fiennes hasn’t been on an Oscar shortlist for almost three decades. His nomination in breakout film Schindler’s List was unsuccessful, in part because of his youth, in part because the Academy is squeamish about appearing to actively celebrate Nazis. Then, in 1997, he lost out on the lead actor gong to Shine’s Geoffrey Rush (though The English Patient, in which Fiennes starred, did bag nine other Oscars).

“Fiennes has the perception of being overdue,” says Jenelle Riley, deputy awards and features editor at Variety. She believes he was particularly egregiously ignored for his mad chef turn in 2022’s The Menu; similar outrage met snubs for roles in The End of the Affair, The Constant Gardener, Coriolanus, A Bigger Splash and, especially, The Grand Budapest Hotel.

Awards expert Guy Lodge agrees. “Fiennes has the kind of IOU from the Academy that often translates into an overdue Oscar when the right vehicle comes along,” he says, “and the chewy, accessible dramatics of Conclave fit the bill.”

The Thursday Murder Club is one of our most-anticipated upcoming movies, and Richard Osman has shared an exciting update for the Netflix adaptation.

Talking on The Chris Moyles Show on Radio X, Osman revealed that today (September 11) marks the final day of filming on the movie, which has been in production since late June in the UK.

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We still don't have a confirmed release date for The Thursday Murder Club movie, but Osman added that it "should be out next year" albeit with the caveat that "who knows with films".

The nominative deterministic owners of Hammer Films, the classic British horror movie studio and library, John Gore Media Limited, have announced the acquisition of Silver Salt Restoration, a British film restoration studio, as part of what they call "our ongoing commitment to preserving cinematic history." Silver Salt, which has a long history of working with the likes of Arrow, StudioCanal and the BFI, will now take on some of the more memorable films within the Hammer Films portfolio for restoration.

And right now Silver Salt is working on the remastering of a number of rare Hammer Films cult classics, many of which have been out of circulation for years. These films will undergo 4K restoration and preservation, for new and old audiences.

This comes as Hammer Films celebrates its 90th anniversary in November, with a special documentary, Hammer: Heroes, Legends and Monsters on Sky TV, exploring the legacy of Hammer Films, its many productions, and its impact on British cinema.

When you think of British sci-fi movies, what comes to mind? For many, it will be directors like Ridley Scott and Alex Garland being exemplary of UK filmmakers who have put a stamp on the genre with films like Alien and Ex Machina. However, outside the heavy hitters and big titles, British sci-fi movies largely go underappreciated; relegated to cult status, or completely ignored in America.

These 10 movies don't get nearly enough attention for their approach to sci-fi, whether it be innovative techniques, a clever approach to the genre, or being so over-the-top they had problems finding an audience. To celebrate the stand-out sci-fi movies, we will blast off and jump between these gems that present some of the best British sci-fi seldom seen but loved by a core audience.

1. Triangle (2009)
2. The Boys from Brazil (1978)
3. Sunshine (2007)
4. Journey to the Other Side of the Sun (1969)
5. Morons From Outer Space (1985)
6. Frequencies (2013)
7. Phase IV (1974)
8. Unearthly Stranger (1963)
9. Under the Skin (2014)
10. Xtro (1982)

The BBC has unveiled a first look at the upcoming Wallace and Gromit adventure that will air on the BBC in 2024.

In Vengeance Most Fowl, Gromit worries that Wallace has become unduly reliant on his creations, and his worries are validated when Wallace creates a "smart gnome" that appears to have an independent mind.

The League of Gentlemen and Inside No. 9's Reece Shearsmith is the voice for Norbot, who can be heard in the new teaser.

In terms of other cast members, Ben Whitehead stars as Wallace, who previously worked alongside the late Peter Sallis (the original voice of Wallace) on other Wallace and Gromit brand projects.

The cast also includes Peter Kay, Lauren Patel, Diane Morgan, Adjoa Andoh, Lenny Henry, and Buzz Khan.

The BBC confirmed earlier this year that the renowned supervillain Feathers McGraw will make a comeback in the new 79-minute film.

Directed by Nick Park and Merlin Crossingham, the film will make its UK premiere on BBC iPlayer and BBC One this Christmas. Later in the winter, it will be accessible on Netflix worldwide.

Glasgow Cathedral is being used as the latest backdrop for Guillermo Del Toro's adaptation of Frankenstein.

We reported earlier this week that the 12th-century structure was closed for filming, and on Saturday, our photographer Gordon Terris captured more of the action.

Actors were seen dressed in Victorian garments and the famous director was pictured on the set.

Star Wars actor Oscar Isaac will play the doctor, while Euphoria and Saltburn star Jacob Elordi is set to star as 'the Monster'.

Also joining the cast are Mia Goth, David Bradley, Christoph Waltz and Charles Dance.

Kneecap is so confident and single-minded in its telling of the semi-fictionalised origins of its titular west Belfast hip-hop trio, that it may make anyone who’s never heard of them feel like a bit of a loser. It’s a film that not only signals a major musical arrival, but ends up feeling a lot bigger than the conventional (and often confining) boundaries of the “music biopic”. Kneecap is the story of Belfast and of the “ceasefire generation” – the ones who were told that all is well, that they live in “the moment after the moment”, even when their nation’s traumas are still writ into their bones. It’s a story, too, crucially, about language deployed as an act of liberation and defiance.

As you can tell, Scorsese is a tremendous fan of the Stones, using their songs at any chance he can get. Naturally, then, he has watched Nicolas Roeg and Donald Cammell’s 1970 film Performance, which starred Mick Jagger. The movie is one of many British films that Scorsese loves, although he once claimed that he “never quite understood it”.

Performance follows James Fox’s Chas, a gangster who, in a rage, shoots an old friend and subsequently flees the scene. Looking for somewhere to stay, he pretends to be a performer and manages to blag his way into an apartment where Jagger’s rock star character, Turner, is living with two women, including Anita Pallenberg’s Pherber.

There’s plenty of crime, a topic often explored by Scorsese, although Performance is also defined by its sex and drugs, making it a quintessential British ‘sex, drugs and rock and roll’ era movie. For Scorsese, he “didn’t understand any of the drug culture at that time.”

Still, he “liked the picture,” and found inspiration in one of the songs used in the film. The same version of ‘Memo From Turner’, a Stones song that Jagger re-recorded for Performance, is used by Scorsese in Goodfellas. Scorsese explained: “I love the music and I love Jagger in it and James Fox — terrific. That’s one of the reasons I used the Ry Cooder [song] ‘Memo to Turner’.

This, though, is a very British journey into the macabre. The original title was “Tea Time of the Dead” (a spin on Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, Dawn, and Day of the Dead). It was easy to understand the wariness among industry observers in April 2003 when they heard that the project was finally going into production. The director had sold his film to nonplussed trade journalists as “a naturalistic comedy about the zombified existence of late twentysomethings, crossbred with a full-scale zombie invasion”.

That was a lot to devour. The director later elaborated on the Reel Feedback podcast that Shaun had been conceived in the manner of Mike Leigh’s Life is Sweet (1990). Its heroes Shaun and Ed (Nick Frost) aren’t trying to save the world. They’re ordinary Londoners who, when clear and present danger looms, immediately look for refuge in their favourite pub, the Winchester, where they can have a “nice cold pint and wait for all this to blow over”.

“Mostly in the American films, and even in 28 Days Later, it revolves around the military, or scientists, or people who can do something,” the director said. “What if it’s the least important people? What if it is two guys on the couch who are hungover and missed the news?”

Wright’s admirers were ready to cut him some slack. He already had a fervent following in the UK thanks to cult TV sitcom Spaced, which also starred Pegg alongside Jessica Hynes. Nonetheless, that was no guarantee that he could make a successful movie. His debut feature A Fistful of Fingers (1995), a spoof western made in Somerset when he was barely 20, had received one or two encouraging reviews without making any impact at all at the box office. One critic summed up its ingredients as being “budget £10,000, cardboard horses and a handful of sixth-formers”.

To certain foreign distributors, Shaun of the Dead didn’t seem a commercial proposition at all. It was far too quirky and sardonic. Senior managers at UIP, the company handling its international rollout, refused even to release it in some territories.

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A few weeks later, though, FilmFour went bust, and the funding for Shaun promptly vanished. There were many reasons why other industry executives were initially reluctant to bite on Shaun of the Dead. As Wright himself acknowledged in You’ve Got Red on You (2021), Clark Collis’s exhaustively researched book about the making of the film, British horror movies “died out” in the 1990s. The glory years of Hammer were a long way in the past.

There had never really been a tradition of British zombie films anyway – and Wright himself was doubtful that the market was big enough for two of them at once. When he and Pegg were working on the first draft of the Shaun of the Dead screenplay, they were utterly dismayed to discover that Trainspotting director Danny Boyle and author Alex Garland were already hard at work on their own London-set story about the undead, 28 Days Later. “I was like, “Argh, no! Oh, we’re f***ed!” Wright admitted to Collis.

Omens on the comedy front weren’t any brighter. In February 2004, only two months before Shaun of the Dead was due to hit cinemas, The Sex Lives of the Potato Men, about the amorous misadventures of a group of vegetable delivery guys, had been fried to a crisp by indignant critics. “Nauseous”, “inept”, “smut for morons”, “witless and repulsive”, “useless”, and “one of the worst films of all time” were some of the nicer remarks reviewers made about the ill-fated film, which, like Shaun, starred several popular TV comedians.

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The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) has issued a statement after lowering the age rating of horror classic A Nightmare on Elm Street.

The organisation, which handles the censorship and classification of films released in the UK, had previously given the 1984 movie an “18” rating, forbidding anyone under the age of 18 from seeing it in cinemas or purchasing it on DVD.

However, on 1 August, the film was reclassified with the more lenient age rating of “15”, ahead of a re-issue of the film this September.

Speaking to The Guardian, a BBFC spokesperson said that there was “strong support” among audiences for older films to be re-classified to better reflect modern sensibilities.

Kenneth Branagh’s The Last Disturbance Of Madeline Hynde starring Jodie Comer has begun filming in the UK.

Branagh has written the screenplay for the film, which is described by the production as a “contemporary psychological thriller” with the plot still under wraps.

The film is independently financed and produced by Branagh who reunites with Belfast producers Tamar Thomas, Laura Berwick and Becca Kovacik. Other producers include Matthew Jenkins, who produced Branagh’s Death On The Nile and Murder On The Orient Express, and Maximum Effort’s Ashley Fox and Johnny Pariseau.

The industry is used to stories about UK cinema­going being in decline since the pandemic and younger viewers finding other ways to spend their leisure time. But a number of independent exhibitors counter that narrative based on their own experiences. While none downplay the struggles that arthouse cinema releases still face at the UK box office, many also highlight reasons for optimism.

“We are seeing a flourishing of young cinephile audiences,” says Jake Garriock, director of publicity at leading UK arthouse distributor/exhibitor Curzon.

David Sin, head of cinemas at the Independent Cinema Office (ICO), echoes that view. “A number of the highest-grossing films in that [arthouse] space in the post-­pandemic era have been films that are aimed at a younger audience than traditional arthouse cinema,” he says, citing titles such as Decision To Leave, Triangle Of Sadness and “a slew of British independent films like Scrapper and Saint Maud, aimed primarily at millennial and Gen Z audiences”.

Sin believes UK arthouse distributors have been slanting their slates toward younger spectators, realising older audiences were initially reluctant post-Covid to come back to cinemas. Over the last two years, independent releases including Anatomy Of A Fall, La Chimera, Aftersun and The Zone Of Interest have played well with a younger demographic. More mainstream indie titles such as Saltburn and Challengers have played extremely well in university towns.

“This younger audience has replaced the more traditional arthouse audience as the core supporter of independent and arthouse cinemas in the UK,” Sin suggests.

This time last summer, British cinemas were holding their collective breath, looking forward to the biggest box office weekend of the year. “Barbenheimer” came to the rescue, with the doubleheader of blockbusters jointly chalking up an initial total of £30m when released in mid-July.

This summer is a different story. There may be no lucrative Barbie or Oppenheimer at hand, but the holiday months at the cinema look potentially more interesting, if not downright weird – at least when it comes to Sasquatch Sunset, this weekend’s new, grunting, wordless tale of mythical Bigfoot folk, starring Jesse Eisenberg and Elvis Presley’s granddaughter Riley Keough.

As the impact of last year’s Hollywood talent strikes combines with streaming habits formed during Covid lockdowns, a window of opportunity has been created for film-makers’ wilder imaginings; for smaller-scale, arthouse fare. The franchise machine has slowed down and more original, risky features have slipped in. “I feel quite positive about the moment we’re in,” said Isabel Stevens, managing editor of the film magazine Sight and Sound, “although I do appreciate it’s still a very difficult for cinemas.”

So far, 2024 has seen a box office slump, but is being brightened by breakthrough independent productions that dodge commercial templates and are often in foreign languages (that aren’t Sasquatch). Prominent among them is Italian film La Chimera starring British actor Josh O’Connor. Out for over a month now, it is still drawing audiences and has taken over £700,000 at the British and Irish box office. Director Alice Rohrwacher’s film is pulling off a trick that big-budget title The Fall Guy could not manage: it has become a hit beyond its own ambitions. It must also be quite a surprise to Rohrwacher herself, since her last film, Happy as Lazzaro, brought in just a fifth of that.

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Phil Clapp, head of the UK Cinema Association, recently told Screen International that a “slightly thinner slate of the familiar franchises” had created an intriguing opportunity. “Stories that are something the audience hasn’t seen before, and makes them want to go back to the cinema, are vital for us,” he said.

In the relatively quiet period before the next action juggernauts trundle in, British cinephiles can celebrate the joys of a film such as Wim Wenders’s Perfect Days, the tale of a Tokyo toilet cleaner that has taken more than £1.3m in receipts. Or The Taste of Things, a quiet, kitchen-based French love story with Juliette Binoche, which took just under £700,000. And now there is the sentimental appeal of There’s Still Tomorrow, a black-and-white melo­drama that trounced Barbie at the box office in its native Italy and is distributed here by Vue Cinemas. It has taken more than £300,000.

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An early sign of a fresh thirst for originality came with the foreign-language hits of the latest award season, Anatomy of a Fall and The Zone of Interest, the latter made in German by British director Jonathan Glazer.

Charles Gant, box office editor at Screen International, points out that these apparently niche films are attracting a wide audience. Glazer’s film took £3.4m – a healthy figure in comparison with his 2013 cult horror film Under the Skin, despite that film’s A-list star, Scarlett Johansson. “When I watched the premiere of Zone of Interest in Cannes, I thought it was going to be a hard sell, but it went on to take quite a lot of money,” he said. “And you really have to see it in the cinema.”

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Still more heartening for Britain is the success of the homegrown films Aftersun, How to Have Sex, Rye Lane and All of Us Strangers, especially in the face of reports that UK independent production has been falling off a cliff. Only in February, Mike Goodridge, producer of the recent Palme d’Or-winning satire Triangle of Sadness, told BBC’s Today programme that it was “essentially on its knees”, with skilled actors and crews all working for big American companies.

Since then, the impact of enhanced tax reliefs for British productions has been felt. That is a measure that might encourage the kind of shake-up spelled out for the Oscar crowd in March by the award-winning screenwriter Cord Jefferson, when he pointedly called on film backers to think smaller. “Instead of making one $200m movie, try making 20 $10m movies. Or 50 $4m movies,” he urged.

As far as Gant can tell, there is no big shift in Hollywood as yet, where franchises still rule the roost. “But studios do now understand they need a mix. Just look at a surprise, smaller-scale hit like the romcom Anyone But You, which has cut through.”

British schoolchildren are taught that the last full-scale military engagement on their soil was the battle of Culloden in 1746. But this should change: on 18 June 1984 the battle of Orgreave, the subject of Daniel Gordon’s documentary, was the bitterest moment of the miners’ strike of 1984-85. It was the last stand for both sides, a brutal and chaotic confrontation of about 5,000 pickets determined not to let trucks get through to pick up coke for the Scunthorpe steelworks, versus about 6,000 police officers, some mounted, and armed with new shields and batons.

The police were effectively directed by Downing Street, which was determined that the force should not be overwhelmed by force of numbers as they had been during a comparable situation in the 1972 miners’ strike. A paramilitary strategy developed to suppress colonial disorder was deployed, laid out in a strategy document never shown to parliament.

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Gordon speaks to pickets who are still clearly traumatised by the events of Orgreave and by the strike in general. Perhaps therapy has never been on the cards for men of that generation and it could actually be that this film has been the first time that they have ever really spoken or thought deeply about the strike and its long term emotional effects. What emerges is the enduring bitterness that some felt towards those who returned to work; I flinched when one miner tells Gordon that his union-stalwart dad never forgave him for going back. When a reporter at the time asked whether he wouldn’t mind his son going to his funeral, he replies: “I’d rather go to his.”

Police officers recount being instructed by their seniors to fabricate witness statements. BBC reporter Nick Jones is interviewed, rueful about the way things went down. No Tories appear on camera, though, Sir John Redwood, who was director of No 10’s policy unit during the strike, is thanked in the credits.

This is a tough, valuable, forthright film about one of the nastiest, ugliest moments in postwar British history. Since 1985, the debate about fossil fuels has, of course, changed. But it is still staggering that a government planned wholesale mine closures with no thought for and no interest in what would happen to the communities affected.

• Strike: An Uncivil War screened at the Sheffield documentary festival on 16 June, and is in UK and Irish cinemas from 21 June.

A forgotten film canister discovered in a South Yorkshire loft has been found to contain an original 35mm copy of Ken Loach's 1969 film Kes.

It is thought to be one of only two original copies still in existence, the other held by British Film Institute.

Rob Younger, who will screen the movie at his Barnsley Parkway Cinema next month, said the film was in "amazingly good condition for its age".

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Based on Barnsley author Barry Hines' novel A Kestrel for a Knave, the film won two Bafta awards and was nominated for a further three.

Mr Younger said: "To find something that's over 50 years old and the print hasn't run in most of that time, it's fantastic.

"And the fact it's a Barnsley-based film, it's Kes, everyone in Barnsley loves Kes."

Contained on seven separate reels of film the recently discovered version is thought to have been put into storage after being was shown on the big screen in 1970.

The reels had sat undiscovered for decades before being passed to Ronnie Steele from a local fan group - the Kes Group.

Mr Steele said he then approached Mr Younger to ask about showing it in the town.

"[The film] made me feel proud, that not only did I belong to Barnsley, but I knew the author of the book, Mr Barry Hines. He taught me in secondary school," Mr Steele said.

"[It is] a snapshot of Barnsley as it really was at that time. People were really proud that the characters were ordinary, working-class people, but at the same time, they were clever, smart, witty."