(This first appeared in issue #68 of Shindig! magazine.)
How kitchen sink
realism met Broadway theatre, sparked a Grammy-winning evergreen and
inspired The Fabs. Duncan Fletcher investigates.
Ken Kesey's
counter-cultural bus trips in the sixties were inspired in part by
the Beat Generation writers of the previous decade. Jack Kerouac's On
The Road being perhaps the biggest influence. Over on the British
Isles, our own magical mystery tours and revolutions of the head had
their seeds in an altogether different literary style.
The Angry Young Men
and kitchen sink realists that had come to prominence in the late
fifties had ushered in a new age of anti-establishment literature and
film that gave a voice and confidence to post-war youth, especially
out in the provinces. Regional accents became accepted, fashionable
even. The northern working class were now represented in books, plays
and films. Shelagh Delaney's 1958 play, A Taste Of Honey, may
have been at the gentler end of this movement but with its themes of
class, race and sexuality it was still subversive enough to help
usher in new freedoms, and new ways of being and seeing...
(Click over the jump to continue reading and for the specially compiled Spotify playlist.)
(Click over the jump to continue reading and for the specially compiled Spotify playlist.)
