A Taste of Honey (1961) Queer Film B+

DIRECTOR: Tony Richardson

Tony Richardson’s adaptation of Shelagh Delaney’s play still shines with undimmed force. Delaney co‑wrote the screenplay with Richardson, who had directed the original Broadway production in 1960. The film stands as one of the defining works of kitchen sink realism, that gritty British genre rooted in working‑class life, emotional candor, and social critique.

Rita Tushingham—who embodied the spirit of British independent cinema from the early to mid‑sixties—plays seventeen‑year‑old Jo, living with her irresponsible mother in a run‑down, post‑industrial corner of Salford in the British Midlands. One day, Jo meets Jimmy (Paul Danquah), a cook on a boat on the Manchester Ship Canal. After a single night together, she discovers she is pregnant.

Determined to keep the baby but unwilling to marry Jimmy, Jo moves in with her best friend Geoff (Murray Melvin), a gentle, soft‑spoken gay man who offers to marry her and help raise the child. The film treats Jo’s pregnancy, interracial romance, and her friendship with a gay man not as sensationalism but as life—messy, funny, painful, and real.

Melvin—openly gay and nearly thirty at the time, though playing a teenager—gives one of the era’s most quietly groundbreaking performances. He was among the first openly gay actors in British cinema, and his portrayal of Geoff remains tender, dignified, and deeply humane. Melvin often worked with Richardson and with director Ken Russell, and his presence here is part of what makes A Taste of Honey so radical. His most memorable movie moment is the card game sequence in Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon, featuring natural candlelight and Schubert’s Piano Trio in E-flat on the soundtrack (see Essay Two: 85 Queer Films from the New Hollywood (1968-1980).

Dora Bryan is particularly memorable as Tushingham’s self-centered and alcoholic mother.

Cinematography

Walter Lassally

Woodfall Films

STREAMING: Amazon Prime and Apple TV+

https://thebrownees.net/85-queer-films-made-under-the-hays-code-1934-1968/

https://thebrownees.net/85-queer-films-from-the-new-hollywood-1968-1980/

https://thebrownees.net/barry-lyndon-1975-queer-film/