IN CELEBRATION

UK, 1975, 131 minutes, Colour.
Alan Bates, Brian Cox, Gabrielle Daye, Bill Owen, James Bolam, Constance Chapman.
Directed by Lindsay Anderson.

In Celebration is an American Theatre adaptation of the play by David Storey.

The play is set in the house, the mother and father celebrating 40 years of marriage and hosting a visit from their three sons. Also involved in the action is the chatty next door neighbour.

The father is more simple, a miner, relying on his drink. His wife spends a lot of time dithering around the house. It is the three sons who provide psychological studies. Alan Bates is the eldest, giving up his job as a solicitor, trying to be a painter, yet with all kinds of tensions inside, which break out. James Bolam is the second son, successful in his career, with job, car and some status, but alone. A very young Brian Cox is the youngest son, married, with four children.

As might be expected, the dialogue (and silences) between the characters gives rise to a great deal of tense drama, from a seemingly peaceful surface, going into personal depths.

1. From The American Theatre? A filmed play? The work of Lindsay Anderson? The strong cast?

2. The staging, the house, exteriors, interiors? Musical score?

3. A British portrait, characters, tensions, relationships? Places in society?

4. Opening up the play, delineation of characters, their interactions, fluid camera movement, the cues from the verbal to the visual, as with the car?

5. The screenplay, colour photography, the credits, locations, editing and pace, reaction shots? The music and the scene interludes?

6. The title, the little celebration of the 40th wedding anniversary? The ironyies?

7. The background of society: the mines, the pastures, powers, homes, neighbours? The workers? And illusions?

8. The three sons, similarities, differences, their upbringing, relationship with their father, with their mother? To each other? Comparisons? The house and other aspects of their upbringing, memories? Their parents’ reaction to each of them?

9. The opening, small talk, the atmosphere, the ease of the surface, survival – and the later interactions, talk, problems?

10. Dad, tired, 40 years of marriage, memories, the celebration, smoking, the pub, his drinking?

11. Mother, marching down the street, her hat, talking to her husband, human hygiene – top-class? Her dithering about the house?

12. Stephen, the first to arrive, the youngest, his family, his children, his talent, needing a break?

13. Colin, smart, his way of life, the car, the manager type, parking the car, the flowers for his mother, his professional success, yet his loneliness?

14. Andrew, the oldest, thumbing the lift, joking manner, arrival, the comments, giving up his work as a solicitor, painting for a living, his tensions within,
relationship was father, breaking up?

15. The neighbour, calling him, her personality, chatter, illness?

16. The degeneration of the celebration, the visit and the opening up of past wounds, present tensions? The mining background of the parent generation, the ordinariness of their lives, the education for their children, the consequences of the education, their ways of life – but still problems?