A Taste of Honey
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- This article is about the play, see also A Taste of Honey (band).
| A Taste of Honey | |
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 A Taste of Honey DVD Cover |
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| Directed by | Tony Richardson |
| Produced by | Tony Richardson |
| Written by | Shelagh Delaney (play and screenplay) Tony Richardson (screenplay) |
| Starring | Dora Bryan Robert Stephens Rita Tushingham |
| Music by | John Addison |
| Distributed by | British Lion Films |
| Release date(s) | September, 1961 UK release |
| Running time | UK:117 min |
| Language | English |
| IMDb profile | |
A Taste of Honey is a play by British dramatist Shelagh Delaney, first produced in 1958. It confronts a range of social issues — single motherhood, race, sexuality — with a frankness unusual for 1950s Britain. The play and its film adaptation were influential, and indicated changing British attitudes to art and society.
Set in Northern England, the play tells the story of Jo, a young working class woman whose mother abandons her on finding a rich man known as "Peter Smith". She finds a room with Geoffrey, a gay acquaintance, and becomes pregnant after a one-night stand with Jimmy, a Black sailor. Geoffrey takes the role of the child's father until Jo's mother returns, and the future of her new family is put into question.
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[edit] Film
A 1961 film adaptation was directed by Tony Richardson, cowritten by Richardson and Delaney. It featured Rita Tushingham as Jo, Dora Bryan as her mother, Murray Melvin as Geoffrey and Paul Danquah as Jimmy.
The film won four awards at the 1962 BAFTA awards: Richardson won Best British Screenplay (with Delaney) and Best Film, Bryan won Best Actress and Tushingham was Most Promising Newcomer. Tushingham and Melvin were Best Actress and Actor at the 1962 Cannes Film Festival. In America the film won Tushingham a 1963 Golden Globe for Most Promising Female Newcomer and Richardson a Directors Guild of America award.
[edit] Influence
The play was notably admired by Morrissey of the band The Smiths, who used Delaney's photo on the album cover artwork for Louder Than Bombs. Another photo of Shelagh Delaney appears on the cover for their song, "Girlfriend in a Coma". An earlier Smiths song, "This Night Has Opened My Eyes", is effectively based on Delaney's story and includes Geoffrey's line to Jo near the end of the play, "the dream has gone but the baby is real".
[edit] Song
A song written by "Bobby" Scott and Ric Marlow was based on the play/film. It has been published in a number of collections, notably for Herb Alpert and The Tijuana Brass, The Beatles, Tony Bennett and Tommy Emmanuel. The Beatles' version is unusual in that it has 3/4 and 4/4 time signature in the same recording (so would their 1966 song "She Said She Said").
