The End of Arthur's Marriage

These lyrics come from one of the striking Brecht style musical numbers that grace this remarkable mid 6Os British teleplay, one of the more unusual specimens from an especially fruitful period for a younger Ken Loach, at the BBC.

The entire comedy plot (one of the few films from the usually serious and often grim Loach that can be described as funny) fits the mold of what critic Robin Wood described, in his analysis of the screwball romances of Howard Hawks, as "the lure of irresponsibility" A husband prepared to put the down payment of 400 pounds on a home for his wife and daughter is missing several financial documents (no great loss, the house is a disaster) and decides to pamper the little girl he favors by treating her to a spending spree in the posh West End topped off by a tour of a zoo and the purchase of an elephant (the poor animal is later abandoned when as darkness falls father and daughter join a band of groovy disco dancing youth on a river cruise.) The kind of class critique that runs through the entire oeuvre of the director manifests itself in the writing of the shopping scenes, featuring a salesman and a pretentious watch,which spoof the snooty rich the way a film from around the same time, Schlesinger's Darling, memorably did.

Also memorable is the long passage where father and daughter navigate a tedious footpath to the house through an ugly gasworks complex and a desolate abandoned area that could be the setting for a Beckett play.

This little known Tv feature is indeed a rich concoction and it leaves a disturbing aftertaste.