Five hours. Three hundred pounds. One man, running out of Soho.
Ken Hughes shot it on the real streets in 1963 — Anthony Newley as a strip-club compère with a debt, a brother and a clock. Before the lights go down, Jason Solomons and Tara Newley open it up: the film, the man, and the London it caught on its way out. Then we watch it whole, in a room of fifty-five.
Forty-five minutes on the film and the man who carried it — where it came from, how it was made, and why it still cuts. Not a lecture. Not trivia.
A short break. A light refreshment. A moment to settle before the lights go down.
The picture, in full. Lights low. Phones away. Watched in company — the way a film like this was meant to be seen. Out by 10:30.
On the picture itself — how it got made, why it lasted, and what it caught of a London that was already on its way out.
On the man on the screen — the performer, the father, and the Soho he carried with him.
1963. Sammy Lee has five hours to find three hundred pounds, or the men he owes will take it out of his hide. A Soho strip-club compère runs the length of his own small world — bookies, brothers, last favours — in Anthony Newley’s blistering race against the clock. The London nobody sent home on a postcard: all neon, nerve and borrowed time.
28 Heath Street, Hampstead, London NW3 6TE. Hampstead station, Northern line — thirty seconds from the door. Fifty-five seats. Every one close.