Free Screening:
This Sporting Life (12A)

Made possible from a National Lottery Heritage Fund Grant in conjunction with The World of Glass, as part of the International Glass Festival, celebrating Glass Making and Sporting Heritage in St Helens we present a free screening of Lindsay Anderson’s 1963 classic ‘This Sporting Life’.

A British kitchen sink drama directed by Lindsay Anderson, and adapted by David Storey from his 1960 novel. It stars Richard Harris, Rachel Roberts, William Hartnell, and Alan Badel.

Harris, in his first starring role, portrays a Yorkshire miner turned rugby player Frank Machin who has a number of women chasing after him, but only has eyes for his widowed landlady, Mrs Hammond (Rachel Roberts). However, she remains resolutely unresponsive to his advances. Meanwhile, Frank's rebelliousness at the club is tolerated as long as he is successful on the pitch, but as he comes to appreciate the emptiness of his existence his frustration begins to mount.

The film was nominated for the Palme d'Or and Harris won the Best Actor Award. At the 36th Academy Awards, the film received nominations for Best Actor (for Harris) and Best Actress (for Roberts). Roberts won her second BAFTA Award for Best Actress, and the film was nominated in four other categories, including, Best Film, Best Screenplay, and Best Actor (Harris).

In 1999, the British Film Institute ranked the film at No. 52 of the Top 100 British films.

In his first feature, director Lindsay Anderson displays the sensitivity to people and places that marked his earlier documentary shorts, but while his film’s working-class context and literary source align it with the British New Wave movement of the day, its drama of yearning and desire is both visceral and timeless. (BFI)