INTO THE GROVE:
CATHI ON WEST 11 AND THE L-SHAPED ROOM
Two films set in the very time and place of Bad Penny Blues, Michael Winner's WEST 11 (1963) and Bryan Forbes' THE L-SHAPED ROOM (1962) based on novels by Ladbroke Grove's resident beatnik Laura Del Rivo's 1961 The Furnished Room and pioneer Lynne Reid Banks 1960 debut, which was modelled on the very house in Pembridge Villas where Laura lived with Colin Wilson in the days of The New Existentialism.
This text – published by DVDClassik in English and French – was originally given as two screen talks at the Duke of York's Picture House for the 2014 Brighton Film Festival.
Read it HERE
This text – published by DVDClassik in English and French – was originally given as two screen talks at the Duke of York's Picture House for the 2014 Brighton Film Festival.
Read it HERE
BAD PENNY BLUES REVIEWED ON 3AM
"This book reminds us that, where pretension abounds, there is much to be revealed and those without a voice should have a chance to be heard" says Nicky Charlish. Read the full review HERE
BAD PENNY BLUES ON CRIMEFICTIONLOVER
"Bad Penny Blues is a devastating read, at times terrifying and heart rending, certainly powerful and thought provoking, asking, as it does, why we put up with the mistreatment of women the way we do. Is there a more critical theme in crime fiction?" says Paul Burke on Crimefictionlover.com Read the full review HERE
NICK TRIPLOW ON
BAD PENNY BLUES
AT CRIMESQUAD
Says the acclaimed author of Getting Carter: Ted Lewis and the Birth of Brit Noir: "More than a decade since its first publication, Bad Penny Blues retains the power to make us all face our darker angels. In showing what the crime novel, particularly one so committed to the truth, is capable of, it lays bare the hierarchy of exploitation that maintains one life is worth less than another because of breeding, poverty, race, or sex. It exposes the cynicism underpinning that golden-hazed half decade when the 1960s became the ‘swinging 60s’. It’s a classic London noir and it refuses to go away."
Read the full review HERE
Read the full review HERE
FEATURES, ESSAYS & ARTICLES
CATHI'S LOVE LETTER TO TED LEWIS AT CRIMESQUAD
CRIMESQUAD.COM have published Cathi's profile of Ted Lewis, as two of his classic novels PLENDER and GBH are released, alongside his peerless biography by NICK TRIPLOW. Read the feature HERE
You can order all these books HERE
You can order all these books HERE
CATHI'S TOP 3O BRIT GRIT FILMS ON DVDCLASSIK
Cathi has expanded her writing on British Noir Cinema from the 1940s-70s with a third installment published by DVDClassik website in English and French. This latest peice looks at 10 pivitol titles from 1966-71 as Britain leaves post-War black and white and gets planning for a Technicolor, Brutalist future. Read on HERE
Part two 1959-64 HERE
Part one 1947-59 HERE
Part two 1959-64 HERE
Part one 1947-59 HERE
CATHI IN SPIRITUS SOHO BY ROBERT RUBBISH
Cathi was delighted to be asked by Soho artist ROBERT RUBBISH to contribute the forward to his new book SPIRITUS SOHO, a culmination of his project to salute the Capital's most notorious and decadent quarter before the wrecking ball takes all. Robert's beautiful artworks (The Three Ages of Derek Raymond shown above) draw on his deep knowledge of Soho's history and the outsiders who made the place: "always up or down but never on the level," as Keith Waterhouse so beautifully put it. The book was launched at The French House, in the Bermuda Triangle area of Soho between Gerry's and The Coach and Horses where so many souls have disappeared before.
Here are Robert and Cathi at the launch:
Here are Robert and Cathi at the launch:
CATHI ON THE TRIAL OF HELEN DUNCAN AT
THE REVISIONIST
One of the major plot strands of That Old Black Magic is the trail of Scottish medium Helen Duncan, the last woman to be prosected in this country for Witchcraft at a sensational Old Baily trial in 1944. How did a 17th century law get evoked to persecute a woman for such a crime in the middle of World War II – and perhaps more importantly, why? Read Cathi's take on this still-controversial case HERE
FEMME MAGNIFIQUE
Cathi was delighted to be asked by Editor Shelly Bond to contribute to FEMME MAGNIFIQUE - a beautifully produced hardback comic anthology that salues the achievements of 50 inspiring women who cracked the ceiling and changed the game in pop, politics, art and science. The anthology feaatures an A-list of writers and artists from around the world, whose subjects range from Joan of Arc, Michelle Obama, Peggy Guggenheim and Mary Anning to Kate Bush, Laurie Anderson and Beth Ditto. Cathi has contributed an essay on her friend and inspiration Lydia Lunch, illustrated by the legend that is Billy Chainsaw. For more information on the anthology please go HERE
CATHI IN VERBAL
Cathi contributed a new short story entitled 'Bring Out Your Dead' to VERBAL 5, the zine edited by Football Factory/Human Punk legend and London Books maestro John King. Fans of Bad Penny Blues please note that 'Bring Out Your Dead' features the return of Dave Dilworth and his Diaboliks from that book, as well as a related in-depth interview with Stewart Home, whose book Tainted Love, about his mother Julia Callan Thompson, is set very much in the same milieu. There is also new writing from Koushik Banerjea, Robert Ciesla, Allan Kausch, Michael Keenagahan, lyrics from Lee Wilson and some family history from Martin Knight. All yours for £3.50 from HERE
In VERBAL 6 Cathi discusses her novel That Old Black Magic, Helen Duncan and our Spiritualist tradition with John King. Plus suedehead poetry from Tim Wells and new fiction from Koushik Banerjea, Paul Duncan, Michael Keenaghan, Martin Knight and Joseph Ridgwell. Talking Books by Peter Mason – The Brown Dog Affair: anti-vivisection riots and rebellion in London Town. Comes with an Allan Kausch cover: Dogboy Slate. All yours for £3.50 from HERE
CATHI IN
INVISIBLE BLOOD
Cathi joins 17 stars of noir, including Christopher Fowler, Denise Mina, Ken Bruen and John Harvey, for this new anthology edited by Maxim Jakubowski. Cathi's story Black Dog is based on a true crime connected to the Bella in the Wych Elm mystery – the Charles Walton witchcraft murder of 1945, which she has written about in Fortean Times.
To get a copy of the book, go HERE
To get a copy of the book, go HERE
CATHI IN BUS FARE:
AN ANTHOLOGY ABOUT THE LONDON BUS
EDITED BY TRAVIS ELBOROUGH & JOE KERR
FEATURING: CHARLES DICKENS, WILL SELF, IAIN SINCLAR, VIRGINIA WOOFE, ELIZABETH WILSON, CATHI UNSWORTH
Not merely a vital component of the city’s infrastructure, buses are equally embedded in London's culture; written about, sung about, joked about, filmed, painted (and painted on), advertised, and celebrated in myriad ways. For the many thousands of people who have depended on them for a livelihood – drivers, conductors, cleaners, mechanics, inspectors – they have created their own world, complete with a distinct language, with uniforms, with places, and with men and women of every imaginable culture.
This new collection aims to celebrate the unique relationship that Londoners have with their most important mode of transport, telling you all the things you never knew about London’s lifeblood and how it’s kept the capital moving for more than a century. Tourists take the tube – but real Londoners take the bus.
Every purchase supports the London Transport Museum’s charitable work.
FEATURING: CHARLES DICKENS, WILL SELF, IAIN SINCLAR, VIRGINIA WOOFE, ELIZABETH WILSON, CATHI UNSWORTH
Not merely a vital component of the city’s infrastructure, buses are equally embedded in London's culture; written about, sung about, joked about, filmed, painted (and painted on), advertised, and celebrated in myriad ways. For the many thousands of people who have depended on them for a livelihood – drivers, conductors, cleaners, mechanics, inspectors – they have created their own world, complete with a distinct language, with uniforms, with places, and with men and women of every imaginable culture.
This new collection aims to celebrate the unique relationship that Londoners have with their most important mode of transport, telling you all the things you never knew about London’s lifeblood and how it’s kept the capital moving for more than a century. Tourists take the tube – but real Londoners take the bus.
Every purchase supports the London Transport Museum’s charitable work.
CATHI IN
THE LIFE OF A SONG
Two of Cathi's columns from Financial Times' regular Saturday music column and podcast THE LIFE OF A SONG are included in the wonderful anthology of the same name, edited by DAVID CHEAL and JAN DALLEY. Fifty songs that have permeated the public consciousness are considered in their many differing guises – songs that have been born, reborn and sometimes hideously mangled on their journies through time and space. Contributing essays on the strange stories behind JOHN LEYON'S Johnny Remember Me and NANCY SINATRA and LEE HAZELWOOD's Some Velvet Morning, Cathi is in great company, including PETER ASPDEN, HELEN BROWN, BERNADETTE McNULTY and IAN McCAN, with subjects ranging from Amazing Grace, Dark Was The Night, Cold Was The Ground and Wade in the Water to Enter Sandman, Smells Like Teen Spirit and I Believe in Father Christmas…
Published by Brewers/Financial Times the book is in bookshops now
priced £12.99
For more information, please go HERE
Published by Brewers/Financial Times the book is in bookshops now
priced £12.99
For more information, please go HERE
IT ALWAYS RAINS ON SUNDAY
by Arthur La Bern
London Books re-release of a classic with an introduction by CATHI UNSWORTH
Cathi was honoured to write the introduction for a new edition of Arthur La Bern's IT ALWAYS RAINS ON SUNDAY – the book from whence the 1947 Ealing classic by Robert Hamer starring Googie Withers came.
Born into the Islington streets run by Darby Sabini and his gang, Arthur was a Fleet Street crime reporter and war correspondent. Many of his novels were adapted for the screen, including GOODBYE PICCADILLY, FAREWELL LEICESTER SQUARE, which became Alfred Hitchcock's equally notorious FRENZY – which Arthur hated. He lived high on the hog and then fell from that distance, sleeping rough on Brighton beach towards the end of his days. Every experience filtered through to his hauntingly evocative descriptions of wide boys, working girls, hardbitten hacks and the coppers that chase them down, capturing vistas of a lost London.
IT ALWAYS RAINS ON SUNDAY is available from LONDON BOOKS website, price £11.99. You can order a copy and find out more about other LONDON BOOKS titles HERE
Born into the Islington streets run by Darby Sabini and his gang, Arthur was a Fleet Street crime reporter and war correspondent. Many of his novels were adapted for the screen, including GOODBYE PICCADILLY, FAREWELL LEICESTER SQUARE, which became Alfred Hitchcock's equally notorious FRENZY – which Arthur hated. He lived high on the hog and then fell from that distance, sleeping rough on Brighton beach towards the end of his days. Every experience filtered through to his hauntingly evocative descriptions of wide boys, working girls, hardbitten hacks and the coppers that chase them down, capturing vistas of a lost London.
IT ALWAYS RAINS ON SUNDAY is available from LONDON BOOKS website, price £11.99. You can order a copy and find out more about other LONDON BOOKS titles HERE
Cathi in London Fictions on Lynne Reid Banks' The L-Shaped Room
Cathi was delighted to be included in the compendium LONDON FICTIONS, co-edited by Jerry White and Andrew Whitehead and published by Five Leaves. Cathi chose The L-Shaped Room, discovered while researching Bad Penny Blues. The book, and Bryan Forbes subsequent movie adaptation, vividly evoke the lost bedsitter land of post-War, pre-swinging West London.
To order from Amazon, please go HERE
To order from Amazon, please go HERE
BFI Flipside Man of Violence sleevenotes
Cathi has written an essay for the BFI's reissue of Peter Walker's 1971 underworld thriller Man of Violence, now available on the Flipside series. In a world of gangs and villains, one man - Moon - will stop at nothing to get the girl and take the spoils. Pete Walker's affectionate low-budget homage to the gangster thriller is packed with sights and sounds from a Britain about to swing out of the sixties and into a somewhat less optimistic decade.
Illustrated booklet with newly commissioned contributions from Cathi Unsworth, screenwriter and critic David McGillivray, and film historian Julian Petley.
BUY IT HERE
Illustrated booklet with newly commissioned contributions from Cathi Unsworth, screenwriter and critic David McGillivray, and film historian Julian Petley.
BUY IT HERE
