Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky

Recently I've been wondering if the BBC was losing its knack for well-acted, insightful drama. Watching this show has re-affirmed my trust that my license fee is being spelt well.

The mini-series follows three people in the Midnight Bell pub in the 1930s (not the 1940s as another person said. The Book was published in 1935) Bob, a waiter, Ella, a barmaid, and Jenny, a customer.

The first episode follows Bob, Jenny is followed in the second, and Ella is followed in the final piece, following Patrick Hamilton's trilogy of semi-autobiographical novels of which this is based upon.

In this modern age of fast paced, snappy action this mini-series may seem slow and bogged down by dialogue, but it takes not too long to realise the immense gravitas being drawn from all three of the actors involved.

30s London is recreated fantastically. It is a land of mundane routine and dull working class blandness, where people go about their lives wishing they could be more but never achieving it.

I found it very fascinating that Patrick Hamilton himself was infatuated with a prostitute at one stage, and therefore Bob is a mirror of him, and Jenny of her, because of this the series takes on a gritty, realistic edge. The dialogue is blunt, yet with the manner of the 1930s. There is an excellent scene in the first episode where Jenny and her friend Violet talk about proper manners, hardly what you'd expect from a pair of prostitutes.

Jenny is extremely flawed, and during the first episode you even get the feeling that she's simply not a nice person. Of course in real life, and in the book things simply aren't that simple, and the second episode exemplifies this, demonstrating exceptionally well why Jenny is the way she is.

In summary this is a fantastic piece of drama, and I will certainly be watching more of BBC 4 in the future.

This series is an excellent adaptation of Hamilton's trilogy of novellas and is a beautiful evocation of the seedier side of London in the early Nineteen Thirties.

The three books (The Midnight Bell, The Siege of Pleasure and The Plains of Cement) were published several years apart and centre on three characters who meet in a pub: Bob, an aspiring novelist, Jenny, a prostitute on whom he squanders his meagre savings, and Ella, who is in love with Bob while being pursued by an ageing suitor.

The story is essentially told three times, each from a different perspective, and this production was originally broadcast as three separate plays. However, the DVD offers the alternative of viewing it as a single narrative and this is the option I would recommend.

It is thoroughly engrossing, but there can be no pretence that it makes for easy viewing. It is unremittingly bleak and at the end there is only the faintest hint of hope for any of the characters.

The great merit of the books was their accuracy as reportage and this is fully realised in this production. It is filmed in a washed-out near monochrome and the production design is a marvel of authenticity achieved on a tiny budget. The playing (especially by the leads, Bryan Dick, Zoe Tapper and Sally Hawkins) is uniformly good. Their performances seem completely in keeping with the time and place without mimicking the acting style of the era.

For me, this series doesn't fully capture the flavour of the books, but that is not necessarily a criticism.

The Midnight Bell, in particular, was highly autobiographical, being closely based on Hamilton's own relationship with a prostitute, Lily. This book, and The Siege of Pleasure, have an obsessive, confessional quality that is largely missing here.

In The Midnight Bell we don't get the same sense of just how self-willed Bob's disastrous relationship with Jenny really is. In the book, Jenny is even less calculating than she appears here. She never pretends to have any affection for Bob and makes only the faintest attempt to get her hands on his savings. She is simply bemused when he keeps popping up to shower money on her. Bob understands this but cannot help himself. Ultimately, his behaviour is much more consciously self-destructive than in this production.

Similarly, we get a much weaker sense of the importance of alcohol in the novel. Bob's increased drinking is shown but not emphasised.

With hindsight, we can see that The Midnight Bell is not merely documenting Hamilton's relationship with Lily, but also the origins of his much more lasting relationship with alcohol. Bob is not an alcoholic (Hamilton probably wasn't, at that stage) but the warning signs are there.

The role of alcohol becomes much clearer in the second book, The Siege of Pleasure. Its centrepiece is a lengthy passage depicting with meticulous accuracy and loving detail the process of Jenny getting drunk for the first time - and how much she enjoys it. Here, we see this happening but cannot share the effect it is having on Jenny. As a result we lose the subtext of the book. Objectively, it is showing how Jenny's seduction is the first step on her road to prostitution, but we sense that it is drink that is the real cause of her fall, even if Hamilton is not explicit about it.

In these books, alcohol is the love that dared not speak its name.

From this perspective, Bob and Jenny are not separate characters, with their own personal destinies, so much as aspects of Hamilton. This makes for an uncomfortable read. Rather than being fiction, the books feel like extracts from his private diary, recording his own lacerating self-reproaches, so the reader feels like a voyeur. Moreover, there is something masochistic about Hamilton's wallowing in ruin and degradation. It is only in The Plains of Cement that he rises above this neurotic self-absorption and achieves a degree of objectivity that redeems the whole trilogy.

No adaptation of Hamilton, however faithful it tries to be, can adopt his perspective. Inevitably, it will interpret the stories, rather than reproduce them. But this is no bad thing. We lose some of the immediacy that we get from the sense humiliation and self-loathing that infuse the books (and re-emerges even more strongly in The West Pier and Hangover Square) but in downplaying their more obsessive aspect it objectifies and generalises the issues that he raises.

Cut loose from Hamilton's very personal preoccupations, the characters now have autonomous lives of their own and we can even believe that there might be some hope for them. Their futures may not be not very promising, but they are no longer completely trapped by the fatalism of Hamilton's self-castigating nightmare.

At the same time, stripping away the most obsessive elements of the books gives us an unobstructed view of the world he has so faithfully documented and it proves to be both convincing and compelling. If Art is about finding the universal in the particular then this drama is arguably more successful than the books on which it is based. It certainly feels like a more balanced piece of work.

This version of 20,000 Streets Under the Sky may not have the same power as Hamilton's books, but it is mesmerising in its own right. At times it is hard to watch, but it is still well worth spending three hours of your time on it.

PS: For a more detailed account of the merits of this production read the three reviews above.

I bought the DVD some 7 years ago , not knowing what to get. But a BBC production must stand at least for a minimum of quality. I was pleasantly surprised by this lovely drama. I was not familliar with the 3 leads , but all three , Bryan Dick, Zoé Tapper and Sally Hawkins delivered a great performance. As a viewer u want things to end good for all of them, and find love. The spirit of the 1930-ies is well presented in here. I wish there were more of these goodies. Peter Piessens/Belgium

There isn't enough space here to write enough about how great this 'series' was (is). I've rated it as a 10 because it is simply faultless. The only time I've seen any TV quite this good is in some of Poliakoff's films...and, like them, don't be fooled by the slow pace of 20,000...for within these 3 episodes you will have time to get to know the characters and see how complex the stories that weave them all together are. Above all...way above all, is Sally Hawkins whose acting is off the scale. Her character's stories of love are absolutely wonderful and many of us who have been in similar situations will see how brilliant her acting, the script, the whole production are. Watch out for one scene in particular when she has a letter read out to her...watch her facial microexpressions closely and you will see acting at its very best...not even a word is spoken. If you don't like slow paced productions then you may not like this, but if you like fine acting and stories of characters and how they relate to one another, then you will find this one of the finest productions ever made.

Initially I thought it was incredible, yet after reading the book again & listened to the radio adaptation, I feel it's a departure from how I interpreted it Bob is far too young & meek , in the book he's more confident. Ella also has a stronger nature than in this .

Ernest Eccles is more caricature is funnier and gentler than depicted in the series. I feel Phil Daniels comes across a bit sharp and it's just more bumbling irritating than harsh. He's got the concept of unrequited love well covered it's beautiful in its own concept. Yeah I do prefer the book and particular the radio adaptation is the best I think that's a good viewing on its own merits.