The writer James Slaymaker, author of Time is Luck: The Cinema of Michael Mann, returns to the pod from Southampton for a discussion of selected works from the veteran British filmmaker Ken Loach, who at age 87 is about to release what is said to be his final feature, The Old Oak.

Ken Loach’s 1969 feature Kes is a staple of the British school curriculum to this day and his 2016 film I, Daniel Blake won the Palme d’or at Cannes and was a big hit in the UK. We discuss the role Loach recently played in British politics, first allied with the Labour Party under the left-wing leadership of Jeremy Cornyn and then ousted from Labour in the ideological purge of the Keir Starmer era.

We discuss three of his features on this episode: the controversial 1990 political thriller Hidden Agenda with Brian Cox and Frances McDormand, 2019’s gig economy drama Sorry We Missed You, and a lesser-seen Loach film from 2001, The Navigators. These works offer a critique from the left of several decades of austerity policies in the UK, the horrors of privatization and the overall exploitation of workers by management.

Plus: RIP William Friedkin.

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Follow James Slaymaker on Twitter.

James’ book Time is Luck: The Cinema of Michael Mann, is now available in paperback and Kindle.

Hidden Agenda is currently available to watch on Tubi. Sorry We Missed You is streaming on Kanopy (if you have a library card). And The Navigators is currently available to watch on YouTube.

McDonald’s UK advert directed by Ken Loach, 1991

Trailer for Hidden Agenda (Loach, 1990)

Trailer for The Navigators (Loach, 2001)

Trailer for Sorry We Missed You (Loach, 2019)

“Ken Loach’s Agenda Is to Rile the British Establishment” by David Gritten, for the Los Angeles Times, January 1, 1991

“Democracy is Dead in Keir Starmer’s Labour” by Ken Loach, for The Guardian, September 28, 2021