Simon Heffer continues his highly-authored and deeply-informed exploration of British cinema by viewing five New Wave or so-called "Kitchen Sink" films of the late 1950s and 1960s.

1.Room at the Top

Having explored the stereotyping of working class characters in his previous series of Essays on British film, Simon Heffer turns his gaze upon the films written and directed by a new generation of grammar school-educated young men, whose gritty depiction of the lives of ordinary working men and women was to shock and delight the cinema-going public.

John Braine's novel, Room at the Top, was a literary sensation when it was published in 1957 and caused further shock waves when it was released as a film two years later, starring Laurence Harvey as the determined Joe Lampton, determined to marry a rich man's daughter and live in the "Top" district of town.

Producer : Beaty Rubens.