A Taste of Honey (1961)
Directed by Tony Richardson

Film Review

Amidst the wave of social realist dramas that crashed onto Britain's cinema screens in the late 1950s, early 1960s, A Taste of Honey stands out as being one of the most forthright and humane.  A groundbreaking piece of social commentary, its setting and themes are every bit and grim as those of any other kitchen sink drama, but it has a lightness and sweetly sour lyricism that sets it apart from other films of its ilk.  Tony Richardson's screen version of the stage play he had previously directed has the quality of a warped fairytale about it and implies that amidst the desperate struggle to survive in Britain's industrial heartlands there is always hope, that life always has something to sweet to offer. It is a much gentler form of social realism than Richardson serves up in Look Back in Anger (1958) and The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962).

It is hard to believe that Shelagh Delaney was just 18 when she wrote the play, her first, on which the film is closely based (and she apparently did so in just ten days).  With its richly drawn characters and compelling narrative, A Taste of Honey offers a slice of life in the northern industrial wastelands that is blisteringly authentic and brimming with charm.  Today, it is hard to imagine how shocking the play and its film adaptation were when they were first seen.  Single mums and homosexuals were stigmatised, both considered the worst kind of social pariah, and at a time when racism was rife in every stratum of Britsh society, mixed-race relationships were unthinkable.  In her brazenly modern play, Delaney confronts each of these taboos head-on but does so with extraordinary compassion and sensitivity.  She does not set out to shock, merely to make us aware of the futility of such idiotic prejudices.

An exceptionally talented cast allows Richardson to get the most out of Delaney's witty and insightful script.  Making her screen debut at the age of 19, Rita Tushingham is superb in the role of the contradictory teenager Jo - a flawed but likeable heroine whose dramatic highs and lows are keenly felt by the spectator.  The only member of the cast of the original stage play to reprise his role in the film, Murray Melvin gives an equally truthful and nuanced performance as Geoffrey, impressing with what is probably the first sympathetic and convincing portrayal of a young gay man in a British film.  The triumvirate of principals is completed by Dora Bryan, a much-loved character actress, best known for her comedy roles on both the big and small screen.  As Jo's irresponsible mother, Bryan quickly establishes herself as the villain of the piece, but gradually we warm to her and see there is a more human side to her character.  Helen's attempts to help Jo may be tragically misguided but they stem from a genuine maternal instinct, a desire to protect the only person she feels any attachment to.

A Taste of Honey has some connection with Tony Richardson's earlier class-conscious excursion into social realism, Look Back in Anger (1958), but it is strikingly different in tone and far more provocative in the issues it touches on.  The Salford setting anchors the film in the grimmest of realities, the skyline dominated by the soulless hulks of water towers and gasometers in a way that evokes Italian neo-realism. The streets, filmed with an aching sense of desolation, swarm with ragamuffin children who are still blissfully ignorant of the squalor and deprivation they have been born into.  To become a single parent without family support was just about the worse fate that could befall a teenage girl in the early1960s, and the film never lets us forget the psychological distress and physical hardship that its heroine Jo must endure as payment for her one brief 'taste of honey'.

Yet despite all the contextual doom and gloom, a hangover from post-war austerity that shows no sign of abating, Richardson's film is far from depressing.  There is plenty of humour to be found amidst the on-going battle against adversity, and it is this that gives the film its warmth and humanity.  The relationship between Jo and her mother may be antagonistic but there is a mutual tenderness beneath the vicious carping, and there is something inestimably beautiful about Jo's cautious friendship with her gay flatmate Geoffrey, a touch of old-fashioned fairytale which makes the film's ending all the more cruel and poignant.  Even though A Taste of Honey concludes on a note of bitter realism it is not despair but hope that we feel as the now friendless Jo accepts her present predicament, lighting a sparkler that is perhaps symbolic of a brighter future.

Film Synopsis

Jo is a 17-year-old schoolgirl who lives with her alcoholic mother, Helen, in the industrial northwest English town of Salford.  When Helen starts going out with a younger man, Peter, the already strained relationship between mother and daughter deteriorates further.  Jo befriends a young black sailor, Jimmy, and for the first time in her life she feels wanted.  The love affair is brief and ends when Jimmy returns to his ship.  By now, Helen has made up her mind to marry Peter, and since Peter will have nothing to do with her Jo must find a flat of her own.  To pay her way, Jo finds work as an assistant in a shoe shop, and this is how she meets Geoffrey, a timid textile student.  Even though she sees at once that Geoffrey is gay, Jo takes a liking to him and they end up living together in Jo's flat.  When Jo discovers she is pregnant with Jimmy's child, Geoffrey quickly assumes the role of a surrogate husband and even offers to marry her.  For Jo, the prospect of motherhood is a daunting one, and matters are made worse when Helen suddenly shows up with her suitcase...