A Taste of Honey

A Taste of Honey is a 1961 British film adaptation of the  play of the same name by  Shelagh Delaney. Delaney adapted the screenplay herself, aided by director  Tony Richardson, who had previously directed the first production of the play. It is an exemplar of a gritty genre of British film that has come to be called  kitchen sink realism.

==Plot [edit] == Jo is a 17-year old schoolgirl, with a domineering, forty-year-old alcoholic mother, Helen. After sustaining a fall after school, Jo meets a black sailor called Jimmy who invites her on to his ship to attend to her grazed knee. They soon start a brief relationship, after which Jimmy returns to his ship and departs. Relations between Jo and her mother become strained when her mother meets and marries a new man, Peter Smith.

Feeling rejected by her mother, Jo starts a job in a shoe shop and rents a flat on her own. She meets a gay textile design student, Geoffrey Ingham, and invites him to move in with her. When Jo discovers she is pregnant by Jimmy, Geoff is supportive of her, even offering to marry her, saying at one point, "You need somebody to love you while you're looking for somebody to love."

Helen re-appears on the scene after the failure of her relationship with Peter, who turns out to have been a selfish lout. She moves in with Jo, which causes tensions between Helen and Geoff. Geoff decides he can no longer stay at the flat and moves out, leaving Helen to care for Jo and her impending baby. Symbolic of Helen's disdain of Geoffrey is her return, near the end of the film, of the bassinet he gave to Jo. ==Cast [edit] == ==Awards and honours [edit] == The film won four BAFTA awards: Richardson won Best British Screenplay (with Delaney) and Best British Film, Bryan won Best Actress and Tushingham was named Most Promising Newcomer. Tushingham and Melvin were Best Actress and Actor at the 1962 Cannes Film Festival. In America the film won Tushingham a 1963 Golden Globe for Most Promising Female Newcomer and got Richardson a 1963 Directors Guild of America award nomination. Delaney and Richardson also won a Writers' Guild of Great Britain award
 * Dora Bryan as Helen
 * Robert Stephens as Peter Smith
 * Rita Tushingham as Josephine ("Jo")
 * Murray Melvin as Geoffrey Ingham
 * Paul Danquah as Jimmy
 * Michael Bilton as the Landlord
 * Hazel and Stephen Blears as street urchins (uncredited)