The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner

The Essay

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

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 in the 1960s.

3.The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner

Simon Heffer examines a second Alan Sillitoe novel, this time turned into a cinematic masterpiece by Tony Richardson: the story of Colin Smith, a boy whose chance to escape borstal and, possibly, to improve his life chances, depends on his talent as a cross-country runner.

Producer: Beaty Rubens.