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| A bleak poster for Ken Loach's Cathy Come Home, which is curiously credited to its story contributor Jeremy Sandford here |
QUICK REVIEW:
Cathy Come Home is a TV movie, which was episode 72/171 in BBC's The Wednesday Play series.
The story of a major problem in England: Young couples who become homeless social clients due to lack of housing in London and other big cities. The issue is broached through a young couple, who because of lacking options and an increasing brood, disintegrates.
The issue at hand, which is the film's errand more than plot or anything else, is presented very accurately, and Cathy Come Home is therefore a very dispiriting acquaintance. It comes from Britain's public service station and is truly enlightening and effective, thus filling the organization's chief responsibility. It is also an early instance of what came to be known as the British 'kitchen sink realism', although that new turn for gritty, location-set realism wasn't as groundbreaking as some may have you think, as English directors had made precursors for the wave many years before, such as J. Lee Thompson's (Taras Bulba (1962)) early films like his Yield to the Night (1956) and Tiger Bay (1959).
Cathy Come Home comes from a story by Jeremy Sandford (Ladykillers (1980), TV), and is written and directed by great English director Ken Loach (Kes (1969)), who directed 10 Wednesday Play episodes in all and, impressively, continues to direct left-oriented, topical films to this day: Jimmy's Hall (2014) is his latest, and he is 78 now!
Watch the first 5 minutes of the TV movie here
Budget: Unknown
Box office: None (TV)
= Unknown
[Cathy Come Home is an immensely successful TV movie: It was originally seen by 12 mil. Englishmen (1/4 of the population)! It raised great concern and activity to alleviate the issues it presented of homelessness, unemployment and broken families. The documentary-like style of Cathy made many viewers believe it to be non-fiction, and it even inspired discussions in Parliament. Cathy Come Home has been voted Best Single Television Drama by Radio Times in 1998 and second best TV program ever by a 2000 BFI TV poll, (only bested by the comedy series Fawlty Towers (1975-79)).]
What do you think of Cathy Come Home?
Can you think of a social issue TV drama that has struck a chord with you?
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