sun 01/12/2024

Room at the Top, BBC Four | reviews, news & interviews

Room at the Top, BBC Four

Room at the Top, BBC Four

Sexual intercourse did not begin in 1963: John Braine's postwar novel is re-adapted

Sex and the single male: Matthew McNulty as Joe Lampton in 'Room at the Top'
Another week, another northern novel about working-class libidos adapted for BBC Four. One is still catching one’s breath from the festival of copulation that was Women in Love. Spool forward a few decades - or a week in television scheduling terms - and roughly the same set of characters have reconvened for the next instalment of how's your father in Room at the Top. They’ve got the same accents, the same set of preoccupations about class, and the same tendency to rummage around among one another’s nethers. For a certain cadre of English novelist, sexual intercourse most definitely did not begin in 1963.
Another week, another northern novel about working-class libidos adapted for BBC Four. One is still catching one’s breath from the festival of copulation that was Women in Love. Spool forward a few decades - or a week in television scheduling terms - and roughly the same set of characters have reconvened for the next instalment of how's your father in Room at the Top. They’ve got the same accents, the same set of preoccupations about class, and the same tendency to rummage around among one another’s nethers. For a certain cadre of English novelist, sexual intercourse most definitely did not begin in 1963.

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