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, Tara Newley and Mel Hughes open it up — the film, the man, and the London it caught on its way out — and a small cabaret of Newley classics is sung live in the room. 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 small cabaret of Newley classics, sung live in the room — the songs the man on the screen carried with him, a few feet from where you are sitting.
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.
On the film from the inside — the shoot, the streets, and the man who took a camera out into them.
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.