The Cage by Andrea Newman (Published by Anthony Blond, 1966)
Andrea Newman, who died recently, was a British author who is best remembered for her novels which became steamy, gripping television dramas about characters whose family relationships are fraught with sexual tensions and desires.
ITV’s must-see series of 1976, Bouquet Of Barbed Wire, is a compelling narrative based on themes from Greek tragedy, including incest, sexual obsession, betrayal and interfamilial violence, depicted by attractive well-spoken actors and situated in the affluent, upper-middle-class metropolitan elite.
The drama was ground-breaking in its psychological exploration of taboo subjects and its presentation of women with strong and complex desires.
The Cry from Street to Street by Hilary Bailey
If only Poundland had existed in 1960, and if only the company had at that point come up with its wheeze of selling engagement rings for £1.
Oh, the Swinging Sixties, full of fun, glamour and excitement. The clubs! The girls! The boys! The streets paved with boutiques! In 1963 we are moving well into the decade of fab, just three years before Time Magazine hailed London as The Swinging City, but the The Small World of Sammy Lee, written and directed by Ken Hughes, depicts a different reality.
SPOILER ALERT: This article references events in the novel Vanity Fair.
The Match is a (very) short story, published in the UK in 1959 as part of Alan Sillitoe’s collection The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner. The title refers to a Saturday afternoon football match between Notts County and Bristol, the setting and subject matter immediately linking Sillitoe to the ‘angry young men’ of the 1950s, whose gritty, realistic depictions of post-war working-class life present their disillusion with the conservative values of the establishment and their refusal to accept the social conventions of a class-ridden society.
