20,000 Streets Under the Sky

The street walker and the street urchin

This television drama depicts the staff and clients of a London pub in the 1930s and how their, often tragic, lives are intertwined.

(Please note this transcript of the panel's review is taken from the teletext subtitles that are generated live for Newsnight Review.)

MARK LAWSON:

Some writers are recognised by name, others by their titles. Even people who haven't heard of Patrick Hamilton who lived from 1904 to 1962 are likely to recognise the names of his plays Rope and Gaslight filmed by Hollywood and his novel Hangover Square. Next week a less familiar title comes to TV, Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky is based on his trilogy about the staff and clients of a London pub, a characteristic setting for a writer who drunk himself to death. Each of the three parts concentrates on a different character starting with Bob an aspiring writer who fells in love with a prostitute. Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky adapted by Kevin Elyot from Patrick Hamilton. Mark, what do you make of it?

MARK KERMODE:

It's interesting, when you consider how dark much of his work was, like Rope and Gaslight and understand how much that is tied up with his personal life, apparently he did in fact fall in love with a prostitute who was very bad to him, it's funny how light and how actually quite charming this is at least in its first episode. What's impressive is that it has a cumulative weight. By the time you get to the third episode which I actually thought was the finest of the three, it's become heart breaking and really genuinely moving and emotionally engaging, very handsomely shot, beautifully played, I have to say beautifully scored, incidentally. It's interesting of something that's born of such darkness and from somebody who managed to write such twisted, perverse stuff, there is innocence and lightness, particularly at the beginning, but heartbreaking at the end, lovely.

LAWSON:

Rosie emerged red-eyed from the screening earlier. I imagine you found it heartbreaking as well.

ROSIE BOYCOTT:

Extremely. I agree with Mark it has got lightness and it draws you in and you're tremendously seduced by all the characters. You're rooting for them even for Jenny, the prostitute, who treats him so badly and who lets him down. What's fascinating about seeing all three together is how he brings up and echoes certain things people do and certain ways they speak. In fact, that scene we saw when he's laying into her saying she can't be a prostitute, and that gets echoed back in the third part when the man who is after Ella does exactly the same thing to her, I thought it was one of the best things I have seen in ages, and it's fantastic they brought Patrick Hamilton back.

BROWN:

It seems like it's prostitute night on Newsnight. Everything we have done has hookers in it. I thought I was watching EastEnders to be honest. I only watched the first one. You have both been generous about the second and third ones, but it's got a kind of melancholy charm but I think if it had been written today it wouldn't get...

LAWSON:

I think EastEnders is a wise remark. I think what's fascinating about it is the dialogue which he's done so well. It clearly - it looks ahead to the bar room plays of Eugene O'Neil and David Mamet. But in television terms there is a connection with soap opera. It's fascinating to watch it because it leads very clearly to soap opera and things set in pubs in that way. I didn't mind that at all.

KERMODE:

It's very interesting, if you see the first episode what happens in the second and third actually change your views of the first. When you first see it, it is like a story of a tart with a heart or maybe without. When you get to the second one and see the story behind it, it changes what the first one felt like. I would actually like to go back and see the first episode again. It really does change it.

BOYCOTT:

I agree because the characters get increasingly more depth. It is very like a soap opera because you get a sense of the class. The music is wonderful and redolent of the age. Everything is perfectly done.

BROWN:

The guy is a good looking bloke and looks like young Gary Oldman, he shouldn't be giving all his money to prostitutes and not having sex with them.

BOYCOTT: Well that's very moral of you James.

KERMODE:

When you get to the third episode you get Phil Davis who is absolutely fantastic. You mentioned Gary Oldman because he is one of his contemporaries.

BROWN:

It's unusual to hear Phil Davis talking with a posh accent as well.

LAWSON:

Sally Hawkins's acting as Ella was an extraordinary performance. The problem is - James has proved this - I think you do need to see all three. They're stripping them across Tuesday, Wednesday Thursday on BBC Four. It's later in the year on BBC Two. But I think it is cumulative because you get the echoes of the dialogue. I think if you just saw the first one you could feel disappointed. It's an inconsequential story, the first one.

BOYCOTT:

It is without a doubt especially when you start to know a bit about Hamilton's own life and how autobiographical it is and his disappointment early in life and obsession with women. One of the things he couldn't manage to do is save up any money that he could spend elaborately on anyone else. Your heart was with him.

BROWN:

That was what was so depressing, seeing his bank balance go down every time he went to the Post Office to get cash out. But it shows you the seduction and power she had over him.

KERMODE:

It would be interesting to see the three stories put together like a feature film or many of the Quentin Tarantino films.

LAWSON:

We have to leave it there. Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky runs on BBC Four from 9pm on Tuesday. Thank you to all our guests.

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Newsnight Review, BBC Two's weekly cultural round-up, is broadcast after Newsnight every Friday at 11pm.