Soho Bites Podcast

Early Dors. We look at two extraordinary lives in this episode. The film under discussion is Value for Money (1955 ) about a naive northern man played by John Gregson who becomes captivated by a glamorous West End showgirl played by Diana Dors. Hmm…. sounds familiar…. We meet Diana’s biographer, Anna Cale, to talk about the film and about the star’s tumultuous private life. Value for Money is on Y...

Yesteryear's Soho club-land. Dr Lawrence Napper of Kings College London met up with Dom to discuss 1937’s Saturday Night Revue . Starring Sally Gray and Billy Milton , it’s a role call of some long forgotten cabaret & variety acts of the day. That doesn’t sound promising but it’s great! Short clip from Saturday Night Revue. Not sure why they chose this bit to promote the film... The plot revol...

Lobotomy Room special. For the first part of episode 26, we headed out to Fontaines bar in Dalston ( Stoke Newington if you’re an estate agent, Dalston if you’re “street” ) to catch a screening of the kitsch, sexploitation B movie from 1960, Too Hot to Handle . The film was one of two that its star, Jayne Mansfield , made in the UK that year. Jayne plays Midnight Franklin an exotic dancer at the T...

Just for the record. The theme of episode 25 is record shops. Soho was, for a long time (and arguably still is?) THE place to go to buy records of all genres with dozens of shops packed closely together. In the first half of the show, Dom talks to Garth Cartwright, the author of two books about record shops, about the history of the Soho record shop scene. Kenny Lynch in Soho , including his shop,...

Art Attack. The theme of Episode 24 is painting and painters, of which Soho has seen many. In the first half of the programme, David Boyd Haycock joins Dom in the Leicester Arms on Glasshouse Street to talk about the so called “King of Bohemia”, the artist, Augustus John . John was described by one of his tutors as the greatest draftsman since Michelangelo – high praise indeed! Lovely photograph o...

Youthful rebellion. Episode 23 is all about generational conflict – specifically, older people disapproving of “kids today”. In the film chat, Dom talks to members of the South Bank Talkies movie discussion group about The Boys (1962), a courtroom drama in which four young men are on trial for murder. Starring Dudley Sutton , Jess Conrad , Tony Garnett and Ronald Lacey as the boys, they also have...

Ola... ...and welcome to the The Soho Bites Spanish special. The film under discussion, the 1973 Rom-Com, A Touch of Class , is set partly in Spain (but also in Soho, of course, or it wouldn’t qualify to feature on the show) and stars Glenda Jackson and George Segal . In the 1970s, it was de rigueur for the writers of British sitcoms to set their big screen spin-offs in Spain . As 1000s of Brits t...

Aliens in Soho. This is our (vegetarian friendly) Butcher’s episode and please don’t @ me about that apostrophe – it’s meant to be there because we’re talking about Butcher’s Film Services who were based in Soho for many years. In the first half of the show, Dr Laura Mayne of Hull University joins us to talk about this long departed fixture of Wardour Street. Here’s an interesting article from The...

None of it Augies well... For the first episode of 2021 we’re going back to 1960 for The Shakedown , a grimy tale of a pimp turned blackmailer, Augie Cortona played by the devilishly handsome Terence Morgan . We’re joined by Richard Luck of the New World to talk about this classic Soho noir which also stars Donald Pleasence , Harry H Corbett , Hazel Court and Bill Owen . Richard is very keen on th...

Carnaby St, Carnaby St... Welcome, cool cats, to the Swingin’ 60’s special episode. For our film chat, Dom spoke to Barry Fantoni about Smashing Time , the 1967 satire / farce about Brenda and Yvonne , two girls from oop north seeking fame and fortune in that there swingin’ London. *** UPDATE*** Since the recording, Barry Fantoni sadly passed away. I hope he made it to 5pm on that particular day b...

Famously, Peeping Tom (1960) pretty much ended the career of its director, Michael Powell, thanks to the universally horrendous reviews it received on its release. Also famously, the film’s reputation was rehabilitated by, among others, Martin Scorsese who counts it amongst his favourite films of all time. In this episode, Dom is joined by film producer, Colin Vaines , to talk about this controver...

It’s all about mucky magazines in this episode, although the publication at the centre of our featured film is very mild stuff compared to others that would come after. In Cover Girl Killer from 1959, a madman played by Harry H Corbett is bumping off the models who appear on the cover of the fictional, “Wow!” magazine. Theatre director, Luke Dixon joins us to talk about the film and the conversati...

The greatest bad film ever? This is our Fancey episode and no, that’s not a typo. Edwin J Fancey (or EJ) was a Soho based film producer and distributor who made a fortune by churning out cheaply made films and by not always operating within those pesky confines of the law. Fancey would have been forgotten, were it not for the efforts of Talking Pictures TV (who sometimes screen his films and even...

Windmill part 3 This is the third and final episode in a mini-series about films set at the Windmill Theatre. Adam Roche from the Secret History of Hollywood and Attaboy Clarence podcasts joins us to talk about Tonight and Every Night – a glitzy, Technicolor Rita Hayworth vehicle set at the Windmill. We have now done EVERY film made about the Windmill and that’s enough for any podcast. Listen to t...

Windmill part 2 As far as we know (and please do let us know if we have got this wrong) there have been four films made about the Windmill Theatre. Murder at the Windmill was the second of these and is the film under discussion in this, the second instalment of our three-part mini-series about “The Mill”. Dr Ellen Wright of De Montford University joined us to talk about this low budget comedy / mu...

Windmill part 1 This is the first of three episodes dedicated to films about the Windmill Theatre. For this first one, Dom met up with actor and Sohoite, Mike Warburton to discuss Mrs Henderson Presents . The film is directed by Stephen Frears and stars Dame Judi Dench in the title role along side Bob Hoskins as Vivian van Damm – the legendary producer at this legendary venue. An important piece o...

Ein Soho-Film auf Deutsch? The lockdown continues, so our first interview for this episode – our German themed episode – took place over Skype. We met up (virtually) with Tony Shrimplin from the Museum of Soho . We discussed Soho’s most famous German resident and the only one (as far as I know) to have had an “ism” named after him. Karl Marx’s blue plaque at 28 Dean St, Soho The film chat took pla...

The lockdown begins... March 16th 2020 was just one of many extremely weird days in recent times. For us at Soho Bites, it was supposed to be the date of a long arranged interview with jazz singer, David Tughan before a gig he was playing at Ronnie Scotts . Earlier that afternoon, Boris Johnson advised clubs, bars and other public places to close. Although the interview and the gig did take place...

Women & drugs in 1922 It turns out the quietest place in Soho – and the perfect spot for an interview – is half way up the Clock Tower of St Anne’s church on Dean St (visible from Wardour St). After winding the clock(!) with the help of Amy, one of a small team of volunteer clock winders, Dom sat down in a funny little room half-way up the tower to speak to historian, author and blogger, Rob B...

Pugilism special. For episode nine, the theme is.... blokes fighting each other for money. We meet up with author, broadcaster and cultural theorist, Ken Hollings to discuss Jules Dassin ‘s 1950 British Noir, Night and the City . It stars Richard Widmark as street hustler, Harry Fabien and Gene Tierney as his long suffering girlfriend. With stunning performances from Googie Withers , Francis L Sul...

For episode eight we met up with Julian Rodriguez , to talk about the exhibition he co-curated at the Photographers Gallery, Shot in Soho . Julian is a photographer and, among several academic posts, is Head of Film and Photography at Kingston University. We have been given permission to show two pictures from the exhibition. You can find them HERE You can buy the book of the exhibition here The R...

Episode seven is our God and religion special and we were joined by two fantastic guests. Firstly, Alex Hester sat down with us at St Anne’s Church on Dean St, to talk about his late father, the former rector of St Anne’s, Canon John Hester. John was in post from 1963-75, so to be the vicar of Soho at this time and chaplain to over fifty strip-clubs must have been an unusual calling. John Hester p...

Black coffee and cigarettes. Soho and coffee are synonymous. In this episode we talk to London tour guide, Nika Garrett about the 1950s coffee revolution and find out where she goes for the best Espresso Martini in town. HINT Nika moved to London from Warsaw 10 years ago for love (that of a charming Irish man) and subsequently began a second love affair – with Soho. Nika loves coffee, art and hist...

Skive Sports. Episode five is our sports related episode! Producer Dom visited the Soho Cricket Collective . The Collective has been running as a team for over a decade and is made up of keen amateur cricketers drawn mostly from the film and media companies that have their homes here. A love of the game is pretty much the only requirement to bag a place on Soho’s only cricket team. If you’re itchi...

In Episode 4 we welcomed Dr Adrian Smith to discuss ‘Secrets of a Windmill Girl’, an exploitation film produced by the infamous Compton-Cameo team Michael Klinger and Tony Tenser. The two were fierce property magnets in their own right and owned, alongside their film production arm, a number of casinos and porn cinemas in Soho. They bought the Windmill Theatre in 1964 and converted it into a cinem...