X-Nico

3 unusual facts about Saturday Night and Sunday Morning


Saturday Night and Sunday Morning

It was adapted by Sillitoe into a 1960 film starring Albert Finney, directed by Karel Reisz, and in 1964 was adapted by David Brett as a play for the Nottingham Playhouse, with Ian McKellen playing one of his first leading roles.

The title of Arctic Monkeys' debut album, Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, is a direct quote from the book, and many of its songs were inspired by the protagonist, Arthur.

The runout groove on the B-side of vinyl copies of The Smiths' 1986 album The Queen Is Dead feature the line "Them was rotten days" said by Aunt Ada (Hylda Baker) in the film.


Alan Sillitoe

Like Arthur Seaton, the anti-hero of his first novel Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, his father worked at the Raleigh Bicycle Company factory.

Humphrey Jennings

His films appear strikingly different from the 'social critique' approach which typified the documentaries of Grierson and his "school" of the 1930s and the feature films of the 1960s and '70s such as Lindsay Anderson's This Sporting Life (1962) or Karel Reisz's Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960).

Nottingham Goose Fair

The goose fair has been used in television programmes as well as in films such as The Woman for Joe and Saturday Night and Sunday Morning.

Sophie Harris

Sophie also designed the costumes for several Woodfall Films, including Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960), A Taste of Honey (1961), The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962), and This Sporting Life (1963), and for Jack Clayton (The Innocents (1961) and The Pumpkin Eater, for which she won a BAFTA Award for best costume designer.


see also