Hard Labour (film)

Hard Labour is a 1973 television film, directed by Mike Leigh and produced by Tony Garnett which was broadcast as part of the BBC anthology series Play for Today. The film stars Liz Smith in her first major role. The film is the most clearly drawn in all Leigh's work from the background in Higher and Lower Broughton where he grew up. "Though elements of autobiography are buried in all Leigh's films and plays, only Hard Labour is set in Salford, – the scenes in the Stones' house were shot in a house just two doors along from where the Leighs had lived in Cavendish Road." [1]

Hard Labour
Liz Smith
Directed byMike Leigh
Produced byTony Garnett
StarringLiz Smith

Clifford Kershaw
Polly Hemingway
Bernard Hill
Alison Steadman
Vanessa Harris
Cyril Varley

Ben Kingsley
Release date
1973
Running time
75 minutes

Cast

Theme

"The polarity between the worlds of Mrs Stone and the lady who cleans her house (the central figure, Mrs Thornley, the Catholic house-cleaner) is icily delineated. In the middle is the new housing estate, where Mrs Thornley's son, Edward, (played by Bernard Hill in his professional début), a car mechanic, lives with his wife Veronica (Alison Steadman)."[2]

References
  1. Coveney, p. 53
  2. Michael Coveney, The World according to Mike Leigh, p. 91
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.