Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush | |
---|---|
Directed by | Clive Donner |
Screenplay by | Hunter Davies Larry Kramer (additional dialogue) |
Based on | Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush by Hunter Davies |
Produced by | Clive Donner |
Starring | Barry Evans Judy Geeson Angela Scoular Sheila White Adrienne Posta Vanessa Howard Diane Keen |
Cinematography | Alex Thomson |
Edited by | Fergus McDonell |
Music by | Traffic Spencer Davis Group Andy Ellison |
Production company | Giant Production Films |
Distributed by | United Artists |
Release date |
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Running time | 96 minutes |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush is a 1968 British comedy film produced and directed by Clive Donner and starring Barry Evans, Judy Geeson and Angela Scoular. [1] The screenplay is by Hunter Davies based on his 1965 novel of the same name.
Jamie McGregor is a virginal sixth-former in a Swinging Sixties new town, delivering groceries for the local supermarket. However he is more interested in matters sexual and sets out to lose his virginity by attempting to seduce the local girls – Linda, Paula, Caroline, and his dream girl, Mary. He ultimately succeeds in bedding the sexually aggressive Audrey, only to learn too late that sex is not as important as he initially believed.
The location for the film was Stevenage New Town, Hertfordshire. [2] Buildings featured include Stevenage Clock Tower in the town centre, which was the first purpose-built traffic-free shopping zone in Britain. [3] The sailing scenes at the "Botel" were filmed on Grafham Water, Huntingdonshire. [4]
The music was released by United Artists Records on a soundtrack album in 1968. [5] It has been re-issued on CD by Rykodisc. The Spencer Davis Group provided most of the music and made a cameo appearance in the film at a church fete. [6] The title track "Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush" was written and performed by Traffic. [5] Traffic also have two other songs on the soundtrack album "Am I What I Was or Was I What I Am" and a version of "Utterly Simple" that is different from the recording used on the album Mr Fantasy . Andy Ellison of the group John's Children also appears on the soundtrack album with the song "It's Been a Long Time". [7]
It was listed to compete at the 1968 Cannes Film Festival, [8] but the festival was cancelled due to the events of May 1968 in France. [9]
The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray officially for the first time by the British Film Institute (BFI) in September 2010 as part of its "Flipside" strand. [10]
The film was the 14th-most popular movie at the Australian box office in 1969. [11] It was the 10th-most popular film in general release at the British box office in 1968. [12]
The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "For teenagers and about teenagers, uncritically embracing the worst aspects of the adolescent's mentality ... the only incongruity about Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush is that it should have been made by adults, so totally does it enter into the teenager's view of himself. ... In Donner's vision of Stevenage, it is not Jamie's sexual daydreams but his anxiety about his virginity which takes on the aspect of fantasy: the problem is no longer how to lose it so much as with whom. Girls from every walk of life offer themselves to him with alarming facility. And were the characters not such empty caricatures ... there would be a lot to say about the unpleasant, purely exploitative nature of all the relationships in this film; ... Inevitably, in this adolescent view of the world, the adult characters are also distorted caricatures ... But at least the sheer professional competence of Moyra Fraser and Denholm Elliott does occasionally provoke a reluctant smile." [13]
Judith Amanda Geeson is an English film, stage, and television actress. She began her career primarily working on British television series, with a leading role on The Newcomers from 1965 to 1967, before making her major film debut in To Sir, with Love (1967). She starred in a range of films throughout the 1970s, from crime pictures to thriller and horror films, including The Executioner (1970), Fear in the Night (1972), Brannigan (1975) and The Eagle Has Landed (1976). She played heiress Caroline Penvenen from 1975-1977 in the BBC series Poldark.
The Spencer Davis Group were a British blues and R&B influenced rock band formed in Birmingham in 1963 by Spencer Davis (guitar), brothers Steve Winwood and Muff Winwood, and Pete York (drums). Their best known songs include the UK No. 1 hits "Keep On Running" and "Somebody Help Me" and the UK and US Top 10 hits "Gimme Some Lovin'" and "I'm a Man".
Sheila Susan White was an English film, television and stage actress.
Diane Keen is an English actress, known for her portrayal of Fliss Hawthorne in the Granada sitcom The Cuckoo Waltz (1975–1980), Rings on Their Fingers (1978–1980) and Julia Parsons on the BBC soap opera Doctors (2003–2012). She also appeared in Nescafé advertisements from 1980 to 1989.
Barry Joseph Evans was an English actor. He was best known for his appearances in British sitcoms such as Doctor in the House and Mind Your Language.
Angela Margaret Scoular was a British actress.
Moyra Fraser was an Australian-born English actress and ballet dancer, who is best known for playing Penny in the long-running sitcom As Time Goes By. Her sister was the actress Shelagh Fraser. She married author Douglas Sutherland, with whom she had a daughter, and Roger Lubbock, by whom she had two sons.
Roy Trevor Holder was an English film and television actor who appeared in various programmes including Ace of Wands, Z-Cars, Spearhead, the Doctor Who serial The Caves of Androzani. His first notable appearance on the screen was in the 1961 film Whistle Down the Wind and he then appeared in Franco Zeffirelli's The Taming of the Shrew (1967), and Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush (1967).
Maxine Audley was an English theatre and film actress. She made her professional stage debut in July 1940 at the Open Air Theatre. Audley performed with the Old Vic company and the Royal Shakespeare Company many times. She appeared in more than 20 films, the first of which was the 1948 adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's novel Anna Karenina.
"Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush" is a single by Traffic. It is the title song to the film of the same name, and features all four members of Traffic singing a joint lead, though the bridge and parts of the chorus have Steve Winwood singing unaccompanied. The single uses an edited version of the song, with the intro removed. When released in late 1967, the single cracked the UK Top 10. Footage of the band acting out the song was commissioned by The Beatles for possible inclusion in the film Magical Mystery Tour but was not used in the final edit. It is now included in the special features of the 2012 DVD/Blu-ray edition of the film.
Clive Stanley Donner was a British film director who was part of the British New Wave, directing films such as The Caretaker, Nothing but the Best, What's New Pussycat?, and Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush. He also directed television movies and commercials through the mid-1990s.
Vanessa Howard, later known as Vanessa Chartoff, was a British film actress and professional backup singer.
The Wicked Lady is a 1983 British-American period drama directed by Michael Winner and starring Faye Dunaway, Alan Bates, John Gielgud, Denholm Elliott, and Hugh Millais. It was screened out of competition at the 1983 Cannes Film Festival. It is a remake of the 1945 film of the same name, which was one of the popular series of Gainsborough melodramas.
Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush is a traditional nursery rhyme. The phrase may also refer to:
Loving Memory is a 1970 black and white psychological drama film written and directed by Tony Scott, credited as Anthony Scott. This 52 minute film was made 12 years before Scott's feature directorial debut, The Hunger. It was partly financed by the actor Albert Finney and the BFI Production Board, and was shown at the 1971 Cannes Film Festival.
Beautiful Thing is a 1996 British romantic comedy film directed by Hettie MacDonald and released by Channel 4 Films. The screenplay was written by Jonathan Harvey based on his own original play of the same name.
Rage is a 1999 feature film directed and written by Nigerian-born Newton Aduaka. Rage is his debut feature. Fraser Ayres stars as Jamie, also known as Rage, a mixed-race, angry youth living on a grim council estate in South London. He is part of a rap trio with his two friends Godwin and Thomas. Looking to escape through their music, they turn to crime in order to finance making a record.
Kenneth Charles Loach is an English filmmaker. His socially critical directing style and socialist views are evident in his film treatment of social issues such as poverty, homelessness, and labour rights.
He was a British actor probably best known for playing opposite Rosamund Greenwood and Roy Evans in an acclaimed early film by director Tony Scott, Loving Memory, which was shown at the 1971 Cannes Film Festival. Other film roles included Daft Jamie in Burke & Hare (1971), one of the leads in the 1972 sex comedy The Love Pill, and a creditor in Christine Edzard's 1987 Dickens adaptation, Little Dorrit.
The novel Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush is an early work by the prolific British author Hunter Davies, probably best known for his biographical books. It is about a sex-obsessed teenage boy living in the Swinging Sixties. It was published by Heinemann in 1965.