Episode 61 - The Long Good Friday

The EscapeGoat Podcast

This is Series 5! Come on in. We kick off this run with a brilliant combination of returning guests Kit Power and James Murphy, joining me to pick apart (well, gush over) the seminal, thrilling yet melancholic and haunting British Gangster movie The Long Good Friday (1980, John Mackenzie).

We discuss Bob Hoskins, Helen Mirren and the snapshot of dawn-of-Thatcher London presented here. Also politics, money, racism, queerness, violence... and Razors. Oh, and THAT ending. Spoilers.

0.00 Intro/preamble

0.14 The Long Good Friday pt 1

1.03 The Long Good Friday pt 2

You can find the show on X at @EGoat_pod (or post at me on @D_Faggiani - I'm on Bluesky too) and email us with any feedback on [e-mail]. All our episodes so far are on Spotify, our YouTube channel, and Apple Podcasts. Do spread the word! We also have a Patreon - any amount of money will get you early access to episodes, and help support the show!

Kit Power lives in Milton Keynes and writes horror and dark crime fiction, with occasional forays into dystopian science fiction. His fiction work includes a novel, ‘GodBomb!’, and a novella collection ‘Breaking Point’, two short story collections (‘A Warning About Your Future Enslavement That You Will Dismiss As A Collection Of Short Fiction And Essays By Kit Power’ and ‘Voices’) and novellas ‘The Finite’ and ‘A Song For The End’. He also writes non-fiction (https://www.gingernutsofhorror.com/my-life-in-horror.html with Volume 1 and 2 also available in book format) and has a limited hardback available on the subject of Ken Russell’s movie Tommy. In his increasingly inaccurately labelled spare time, he podcasts - on his own show, Watching Robocop With Kit Power and on What The Hell Is Wrong With Us? with George Lea. For weekly early access to his fiction, non-fiction, and podcasting work, visit www.patreon.com/kitpower. He has also been on five previous episodes of The EscapeGoat Podcast, discussing each part of the original UK House of Cards Trilogy in turn, the Stephen King short story collection Skeleton Crew, and then his essay collection My Life In Horror Volume II. Check them out! Also get him on Twitter and Bluesky.

James podcasts at Pex Lives, about Doctor Who, Bob Dylan and whatever else he pleases. He also co-hosts the marvellous Pop Could Never Save Us (check it out!) and his Springsteen project (with Kit) We Learned More From a Three Minute Record. He can be got primarily via jamesmurphy.bsky.social on Bluesky these days. This is his third appearance on this show - last year he featured talking about Douglas Adams' Mostly Harmless.

NOTES

Here is the full extended clip featuring Bob Hoskins and film critic Barry Norman in walkabout conversation around London from a few years after the movie, which we play an excerpt from in the episode. Watch it, they make a ridiculously charming unlikely pair. I'd watch a series of just them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTgqHsJ4410

Here's a retrospective piece from 2021, including some thoughts from Helen Mirren on the movie: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/apr/01/beheading-scene-helen-mirren-co-stars-long-good-friday-british-classic

Here is a BBC cast and crew documentary about TLGF from 2005: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlCA7eKyKbc

And here's a BFI panel discussion (including Paul Barber) from 2015: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCT5HCRCmkE

Finally... I've had this podcast planned for a while... but in autumn 2023, over at my brother Matt's podcast... they were lucky enough to have guest star Simon Osborne ('Pitt the Younger' in Blackadder III) on for a chat (which is a fascinating listen in its own right)... but guess what movie Simon picked as his favourite to talk about?? Listen here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0ktV6CZqxuqon76fYDIQHz?si=ilM6R_GvR9aAOQ6w8i7xjg