Black Book (Zwartboek)
Dutch director Paul Verhoeven who brought us the iconic Robocop and Basic Instinct but also rubbish like Showgirls returns to his roots and finds his form again. A beautiful Jewish singer, Rachel…
A Prairie Home Companion
Cert 12A The last movie from great film director Robert Altman, who died last year, is a fitting epitaph to an illustrious career. A Prairie Home Companion is a long-running variety show…
A Young Man’s Game
A young man’s game;flexing muscles,oiling engines,gun barrel proud. Lungs at capacity, heart on maximum,legs at full stretch, manhood proven. No pain, no gain,you can do it,come on mate,just go for it. Fraternity,camaraderie,buddies,all…
London to Brighton
Pop Video director, Paul Andrew Williams, makes an impressive feature film debut in a homegrown gangster movie full of tension and style. Kelly (Lorraine Stanley) is a prostitute, forced by Derek (Johnnie…
Deck The Halls
It wouldn’t be Christmas without a turkey and you won’t find a bigger one than this in the current crop of festive releases. Cute, brash little Buddy (Danny DeVito) is a car…
Little Children
Look out for this one at next year’s award nominations. Outstanding writer/director Todd Field builds on his success with In The Bedroom to make one of the best films of the year.…
Saw III
Jigsaw is back. The cruel gamester has devised some new tricks for his latest victims. Will they survive the test? Can the filmmakers spin it out one last time? We dare you…
The Last Kiss
Scrubs star Zach Braff does what he does best in this enjoyable remake of an award-winning Italian film from a couple of years ago. He is the downbeat, angst-ridden but charming everyman…
Kung Fu Summer Camp 2008
Kung Fu Summer Camp 2008 Day OneIt was summertime…it was Cornwall… it was the Kung Fu Summer Camp. This was the third year and the numbers just keep growing. That’s even if…
The History Boys
Brilliant theatre director Nicholas Hytner might run the National Theatre but he just doesn’t get it about filmmaking. Brilliant film director he most definitely ain’t in this unimaginative screen adaptation of Alan…
The Departed
So is this Scorsese’s great film for this decade? It has most of the ingredients of his finest work – the violent world of gangsters, cops, and assorted American low life on…
Click
Pass the sick bucket as Adam Sandler returns, farting and grimacing in this charmless and talentless rip-off of the great It’s A Wonderful Life. Michael Newman (Adam Sandler) is an over-worked architect…
Clerks II
So Dante and Randall are back – great news for all lovers of the original (and it was definitely original) movie. OK, so fans of Clerks will be disappointed that the new…
Beerfest
Beer swilling, burping, pissing, throwing up and boob gazing – a typical night’s out with the lads but, just like those nights out, it does go on for much too long. Jan…
The Wicker Man
Edward Woodward starred in the original 1973 B-movie horror classic about a copper who falls foul of a group of weird religious fanatics on a remote Scottish island. Who would believe that…
Volver
With this tragic-comedy, the great Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar wowed the Cannes Film Festival. Penélope Cruz, in the performance of her career, will wow everyone everywhere and not just with the brilliance…
I am Colin Bell, a UK novelist and poet, previously a TV producer-director of arts programmes for British, American, German and Japanese broadcasters. I am also known as the blogger Wolfie Wolfgang. My two novels are Stephen Dearsley’s Summer Of Love (Ward Wood Publishing, 2013) and Blue Notes, Still Frames (Ward Wood Publishing, 2017). They are both available in paperback or as Kindle editions. My poetry has been published in various journals and anthologies in the UK and the USA.
It's Brighton in 1994 Busker Joe lives on the beach with his flute and his troubled Goth girlfriend, Victoria, who’s a singer. He borrows a bath towel for her from Rachel and Alan, a prosperous young couple from the rapidly growing world of computers. The meeting will change all their lives…and other lives too.
There’s Harry, a beach bum drummer; Nico, a transient American who takes revealing photographs of passers-by; Kanti and Diep, mysterious artist twins from Nepal; Lionel and John who reveal more than their bodies on the nudist beach; and pub landladies Jacqueline and Rosemary who top up their income by dabbling in the sex trade.
Joe is always there, somewhere, weaving more than melodies with his flute.
Buy the paperback edition with free worldwide postage at
The Kindle edition is available from Amazon.
It's 1967 and the start of the Summer of Love. In Brighton, Stephen Dearsley is tempted and intimidated by the way his generation is casting off traditional ways of dress along with the old ways of thinking. His ambition to become a biographer is fulfilled when he's commissioned to research the life story of the mysterious Austin Randolph.
Buy the paperback edition with free worldwide postage at
The Kindle edition is available from Amazon.
