Paul Cronin

Mike Leigh

Abbas Kiarostami

Lessons with Kiarostami

This new edition updates Mike Leigh's career to his most recent films, Mister Turner and the epic masterpiece Peterloo. Five-time Oscar nominee and BAFTA winner, the only British director to have won the top prize at both Cannes (for Secrets & Lies) and Venice (for Vera Drake) - Mike Leigh is unquestionably one of world cinema's pre-eminent figures. Now, in this definitive career-length interview, he reflects on all that has gone into the making of his unique body of work. In their commingling of bleakness and humor, Leigh's films recreate the tragi-comic world of people whose everyday lives are far from glamorous: a world in which 'the done thing' usually prevails, contrary to our inner hopes, wants or needs. Leigh's work has always reflected its times and entered the vernacular, whether the harsh studies of Meantime and Naked or the humor of the now-legendary Abigail's Party and Nuts in May. Above all, Leigh is an accomplished storyteller, and these films deal with universal themes: births, marriages and deaths, parenthood and failed relationships, families and their secrets and lies. Within these pages Leigh speaks to Amy Raphael more openly than ever before of his life and inimitable working method, revealing himself as passionate, forthright, no sufferer of fools, but the owner of a dry and playful Mancunian wit.

Mike Leigh on Mike Leigh

A Play

Goose-pimples

Smelling A Rat, Mike Leigh's classic comedy, is propelled by his "wonderful gift for conversation so rock-bottom-boring that is is hilarious." (Observer)

Smelling a Rat

"In Two Thousand Years Mike Leigh explores, in a gentle tragi-comic way, a wide range of issues, including politics, religion, identity and the vexed question of Israel and the Middle East."--BOOK JACKET.

Two Thousand Years

A play about loneliness, togetherness, longing, warmth and love, from the author of Abigail's Party. 1979. The winter of discontent is over and Margaret Thatcher's regime is about to transform the country. Old friends come together in a Kilburn bedsit for a drunken celebration of their mutual affection. As funny and compassionate now as when it premiered over thirty years ago, with a cast including Julie Walters, Stephen Rea and Jim Broadbent. The play was revived by Mike Leigh for Hampstead Theatre in 2011 and marked the first time the award-winning author and director returned to one of his past plays.

Ecstasy

Mike Leigh’s 1970s classic play ‘Abigail’s Party’ focuses on an evening of domestic hell in the guise of a suburban drinks soirée. While teenager Abigail parties a few doors away, the pretentious Beverly and her estate agent husband, Laurence, entertain their neighbours – Abigail’s mother, Susan, ex-footballer, Tony, and his wife, Angela. But as the alcohol flows, tensions in the hosts’ barely functional marriage emerge and their obsessions, prejudices and petty competitiveness are ruthlessly, and hilariously, exposed. ‘Goose-Pimples’, meanwhile, is easily as sharp and uncompromising. This time, the action focuses on ambitious casino croupier, Jackie, and Saudi businessman, Muhammad, who meet – and misunderstand – one another spectacularly.

Abigail's Party & Goose-Pimples

Collected interviews with the British filmmaker of High Hopes, Life Is Sweet, and Secrets and Lies

Interviews

Mike Leigh�s 1970s classic play �Abigail�s Party� focuses on an evening of domestic hell in the guise of a suburban drinks soir�e. While teenager Abigail parties a few doors away, the pretentious Beverly and her estate agent husband, Laurence, entertain their neighbours � Abigail�s mother, Susan, ex-footballer, Tony, and his wife, Angela. But as the alcohol flows, tensions in the hosts� barely functional marriage emerge and their obsessions, prejudices and petty competitiveness are ruthlessly, and hilariously, exposed. �Goose-Pimples�, meanwhile, is easily as sharp and uncompromising. This time, the action focuses on ambitious casino croupier, Jackie, and Saudi businessman, Muhammad, who meet � and misunderstand � one another spectacularly.

40th anniversary edition with a new introduction by Mike Leigh. Forty years on from its first performance at the Hampstead Theatre and original screening on BBC1 soon after, Mike Leigh's Abigail's Party - telling of two marriages spectacularly unravelling at an awkward neighbourhood drinks party - remains a pinnacle of British theatre. Here is the original script, complete with a new introduction by Mike Leigh describing the play's unlikely genesis, how it came to be made and where he believes it fits within his oeuvre as one of the country's leading writers and directors. 'The play came from my intuitive sense of the spirit and the flavour of the times, and from a growing personal fear of, and frustration with the suburban existence' Mike Leigh, from his new introduction 'Leigh's play isn't simply about marriage and Essex, but also about the unhappy state of the realm' Guardian

Mike Leigh

About

Books

Join the club