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Review: A Taste of Honey (1961)



Life is a mixture of comedy and tragedy- tragicomic if both aspects are given equal measure of awareness; melodramatic when the two extremes are ratcheted up to a boiling point. For most people, it is only natural that they take the good with the bad. An ingrained fatalism dictates their attitudes towards the vagaries of human fate; therefore in joy they wait agonisingly for the day their good fortune is suddenly wrested from them, and in sadness for the glimpse of light that signals a gradual upturn of the dire condition. “Nothing lasts forever”- this well-worn adage becomes almost the guideline of their survival, and a perpetual reminder that life is ever mobile and unpredictable.

Every current of life, regardless of the varying destination it tends to, returns and oscillates invariably between two points: suffering and the struggle to survive. They are as much the fundamentals of human condition as the impetus for the cultivating of human resourcefulness: it is the battle of will between the irrevocable fate and the indefatigable resilience of mankind.

Shelagh Delaney’s A Taste of Honey explores the extent to which men are capable of withstanding endless misfortunes whilst keeping alive the infallibly optimistic outlook of life. The story is set in 1950s’ Salford, a former industrial town that weathered a gradual decline in commerce and population as people left for the cities to seek for better fortunes. 17-year-old Jo and her errant mother Helen were amongst those who struggled to keep afloat in this implacable squalor, moonlight-flitting from one derelict accommodation to another. The relationship between the mother and daughter was a contentious one; their exchange abounded in sardonic humour and throwaway barbs. Desperate to be released from the straits, Helen ran off one day with an insolent cad, and the abandoned Jo was impregnated by a black sailor and afterward befriended a kind homosexual art student, Geoffrey.

Tony Richardson’s 1961 film version justly evinces a dogged hopefulness that, according to Delaney, is the keynote of the play. But whilst, in the play, this positivism is somewhat weighed down by a sense of unremitting oppressiveness and self-inhibition the cramped locale evokes, Richardson negates this vital contrast by expanding the visual scope, wherein the interiors are much wider, and the characters are taken out into the open, roaming frequently in the country and the dockside.

By muting the ambiguous overtone that makes the original story not only a celebration of human endurance, but an unvarnished observation of the difficult life in post-war Manchester, the film is evidently keen on conveying an edifying message that the brave of heart will eventually triumphs all obstacles. The play nonetheless is much more sceptic in its tone, as the ending sees Helen, back from her disastrous marriage to tend to her pregnant daughter, rush out in the shocked knowledge that her grandchild may be half-black. Although she promises Jo that she is only going to get herself a few drinks, there is no knowing if the fickle Helen will keep her word this time. Jo, left alone again, smilingly hums a tune Geoffrey teaches her, seemingly still in the dark of her friend’s earlier departure.

The film instead closes with manifest signs of hope: Helen is really back from the bar and Jo stares bedazzled by a sparkler. This overall image of hope is accompanied by a more sympathetic portrayal of characters: Dora Bryan as the mother whose maternal instinct atones for her failure as a responsible parent, and Rita Tushingham as a more likeable Jo whose flares of rebelliousness is a result of being perpetually exposed to harsh fate. Like all young sufferers, Jo often discloses her feelings in deceptively simple address: “I’m not frightened of the darkness outside. It’s the darkness inside houses I don’t like” is her way of expressing her wish for a more stable, loving household. One would suggest that such precocity could not have been any more exquisitely captured if the play weren’t written by Delaney when she was only 19.
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