Ken Loach At The BBC review (DVD) ★★★★

This box set, spanning Loach's early television collaborations at the BBC with several long term writing partners from 1965 to 1977, comprises a significant collection of his work for the first time, but even this cannot be said to be exhaustive. Several of his plays were victims of the BBC's short-sighted video tape wiping, or poor archiving.

The set comprises Three Clear Sundays (1965), Up The Junction (1965), The End Of Arthur's Marriage (1965), Cathy Come Home (1966), in Two Minds (1967), The Big Flame (1969), The Rank AndFile (1971), Days Of Hope (1975), and The Price of Coal (1977). Here, Loach fans will get a further insight into social policy and reform, debates on labour relations, and a genuine one-off oddity, as well as artistic flourishes which are sadly lacking in Loach's later work.
 
Loach has always denied the superiority of cinema over television, which is why so many of his dramas here are shot on film, and on location. He was very influenced by the Italian neo-realists, and shot on location in slum clearances in major cities, often mixing interesting old and young faces, and overlapping naturalistic dialgue. But he isn't just a pseudo-documentarian. There is real artistry on display in a few of these pieces, hints of a more adventurous approach to film which Loach has not always kept up.
 
Up The Junction, written by Nell Gunn, touches on the then illegal act of abortion, but is not just a morality play. It is as much about young people in Battersea having fun, going out, dating, working in a dead end job but not being beaten down yet, just living life.
The End Of Arthur's Marriage is a real curio. In this satirical musical, Arthur is entrusted by his wife to put down a deposit provided by her parents on a new home. Taking their daughter, he botches it, and embarks on a days folly, spending the money on fripperies and ending the adventure by leading a parade of mods on vespas, behind an elephant rescued from the zoo. The piece mocks the middle class obsession of home ownership and probity. It is fun to imagine David Fincher saw the scene where Arthur's wife Mavis views the images from the home catalogue swim before her eyes as she rhymes off their merits. It foreshadows Edward Norton pacing his apartment in Fight Club as he orders from Ikea, while his furniture resembles a catalogue display.
 
In Two Minds is an innovative documentary style drama about the treatment of a young woman diagnosed as a schizophrenic, written by David Mercer and based on the radical ideas of psychiatrist R.D.Laing. It suggests the condition is a label employed by the establishment to pathologise a certain kind of social condition. In this case, the fathers anger at the perceived promiscuity of the daughter may be a factor in control and pacification. The look of the film flips between the objective viewpoint of the the viewer and the subjective view of the observing doctor. Halfway through, the doctor disappears altogether and the camera adopts the viewpoint of the young woman patient. The film adopts documentary norms but also flips between viewpoints, has a running commentary of interior monologues, extreme close-ups and jump cuts. Sadly, Loach has backed away from such startling techniques to focus on actor performances. His later films are no less powerful for that, but less exhilarating and daring in style.
 
Cathy Come Home is the most famous and ground braking of the works here, dealing with the enforced break up of a young family when an accident lays the father (Ray Brooks) off and they cannot pay the rent on their flat.It lead to debate and reform of housing policy. The play is available seperately, with commentary form Loach and writer Jeremy Sandford. The film contextualises Cathy's plight with the voices of others caught in the system to give a fuller picture of the almost  Dickensian inequity of the time.
 
Days Of Hope is an ambitious four part drama serial, charting the lives of a working class family from the end of World War 1 to the General Strike. Controversial at the time, seen as a socialist diatribe and incorporating the events of The Irish Civil War, Loach had hoped to get part of it released theatrically, but the BBC would not allow that.
 
The oldest piece here is Three Clear Sundays, the character study of a man condemned to death for murder. The other plays are more traditional working class political pieces, The Big Flame, The Rank And File, and The Price Of Coal. The Price Of coal is a two part study of a colliery and mining village. In the first, the tone is comic, as they prepare for a royal visit. The second part deals with an undergroung explosion, killing and trapping miners, and the attempts to rescue them, with the attendant fall-out regarding blame. The political discussions in these pieces, whether they be around a pub table, in negotiations, or vox-pops with a reporter on the kerb side, are slow, measured observations,. One can see the groundwork for Loach's Land And Freedom , where a debate on land reform by the revolutionaries is no less gripping than the fighting around it. Mary Whitehouse described The Big Flame and The Rank And File as "a communist blueprint." A ringing endorsement!
 
All in all, this box set is an essential purchase for Loach completists. It is a shame there are no accompanying interviews with his many collaborators.