Sparrows Can’t Sing – 1963 | 94 mins | Comedy, Drama | B&W

Plot Synopsis

Avant-garde theatre director Joan Littlewood plays it fairly safe with her sole directorial effort based on a play that she staged at the Theatre Workshop. Littlewood and author Stephen Lewis collaborated on the loose screenplay and surrounds herself with many of the Workshop’s ensemble cast and allowed them a degree of improvisation. Some may view the screenplay’s bright and breezy slant on Cockney life as romanticised but charming, others who lived in the tower blocks or in fear of The Krays may view is as somewhat patronizing and insincere. James Booth is a punchy blend of toughness and irresistible charm as the negligent husband, whilst BAFTA-nominated co-star Barbara Windsor delightfully saunters through her bubbly role with a reassuring sense of wisdom. Shot on almost entirely on location in Stepney, London.

Tearaway merchant seaman Charlie Gooding (James Booth) is back after two years at sea. He does not know that his wife Maggie (Barbara Windsor) is living with Bert (George Sewell), a local bus driver, nor that his East End home has been demolished. Charlie sets out to find his wife and collect his conjugal rights, but his arrival strikes uneasiness and a wall of silence from the locals, who know his uncertain temper. Frustrated by this uncooperativeness, Charlie takes his brother (Roy Kinnear) hostage in a pub and refuses to let him go until his wife arrives. Eventually his wife agrees to meet him, and Charlie gets subsequently gets a surprise when he encounters Maggie wheeling a pram down the High Street. Charlie buys some new furniture and begins cleaning a room at his mother’s house in preparation for the return of his wife and child. That night, during a family celebration down the pub, Bert arrives to reassert his claim on Maggie.