Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush

     

     It is the late Sixties, let us say 1968 as it is the year of this film's cinematic release.  It is a Saturday - likely the morning - in a New Town in southern England.  (It is actually Stevenage.)  The town, and particular the Town Square, is busy with shoppers.  Among them is 17 year old Jamie McGregor - sixth form pupil at the local Grammar School.  He is cycling around delivering groceries for a local supermarket.  His mind, however, is not his Saturday job, but elsewhere on another sort of job.  Sex.  Crumpet.  Skirt.  His mate Spike is getting it; even his younger brother is getting it....

     That evening Jamie goes on a date of sorts. His first. It is unsuccessful, as these things often are. 

     And so begins a year of comedic adventures as Jamie bounces from relationship to relationship battered, bruised but undimmed.  Here's the full list of runners: 'runny old Linda'; church-going Paula (and her mate Cath); affected Caroline Beauchamp; ditzy Audrey; and cool, leggy Mary Gloucester, doctor's daughter.

     Clive Donner's 1968 film is an adaptation of Hunter Davies debut novel of 1965, 'Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush'.  Screenplay by Hunter Davies and Larry Kramer, who was also Assistant Producer to Clive Donner; Cinematography by Alex Thompson; and score by Steve Winwood, Traffic, and the Spencer Davis Group - who also appear in the film playing at a young persons' disco at the local parish church. No parochial event that; in perhaps the most stylish scene in the film, the band - all in white - perform upon a circular revolving stage in the midst of a room lined in black engineering bricks, while a cool, well dressed crowd of the beautiful people dance around them.  It put in mind, momentarily, of Jacques Demy's wonderful 1967 film 'Les Demoiselles de Rochefort' with its mix of Nouvelle Vague (almost complete use of location filming) and heightened reality.  Would the Spencer Davis Group really have played a event in the local church hall?  (If you haven't already watched 'Les Demoiselles de Rochefort' then you should.  It's a treat.)

     The cast is excellent.  A 23 year old Barry Evans, playing Jamie, leads a cast of relative new-comers, some of whom went on to become household names here in the UK such as Christopher Timothy, and Diane Kean.  I think, however, the older members of the cast such as Michael Bates and Moira Frazer, playing Jamie's parents, have the edge when it comes to characterisation and dialogue.  One of the faults of films of that period is that they tend to sprawl about, as though the director is easily distracted (or self indulgent), and the narrative structure suffers as a result - think 'What's New Pussycat?', 'Casino Royale', and 'The Charge of the Light Brigade'.  It was as if films were suddenly subject to centrifugal force.  The Mulberry Bush is not totally immune from these tendences as there are a number of 'dream' sequences of various degrees of naughtiness, but their ability to disrupt the narrative is mainly held in check.

     As you may have realized by now I rather love this film, and I recommend a watch.  It's all very 'Sixties' and all rather innocent.  A long way from 'Get Carter'.  What a difference a mere three years make.  Gone is the charm, the innocence, and the optimism.

     It is a comedy of manners but in some ways is also a pre-cursor of the sex-comedy of the 1970s - the comedic bedroom scenes, the coitus interruptus -  and many of the cast would later appear in that peculiarly British genre: Barry Evans starred in 'Adventures of a Taxi Driver' & 'Under the Doctor'; Adriene Posta in both 'Adventures of a Taxi Driver' & 'Adventures of a Private Eye'; Diane Keen in 'The Sex Thief'; Christopher Timothy in 'Up Pompeii' & 'Eskimo Nell'; George Layton in 'Confessions of a Driving Instructor'. I simply didn't know that so many were made!

Here we go Round The Mulberry Bush

1968

Producer:               Clive Donner

Director:                 Clive Donner

Cinematographer: Alex Thompson