Excerpt from script, A Dream From The Bath:

“It was precisely because England was so small that
the cinema had to enlarge it – rather than sentencing
images to years of national servitude….He wanted
to defeat above all, those demands for a national
cinema. He wanted to restore privacy.”

Oh To Be In England presents three contrasting films that make a forceful comment  on our social experience through documentary sources, the domestic environment and the power of collective action.

Two of the films – Nightcleaners and Who Shot The Sheriff? – capture grassroots campaigns that open up the socio-political issues that became central to society during that period. The third, A Dream From The Bath, is a more personal reflection from Marc Karlin, one of the four credited members of the Berwick Street Collective who made Nightcleaners, and who went on to work on an extraordinary body of films exploring urgent left wing politics, history and memory. These three contrasting works invite the viewer to consider the power of the camera and the edit in framing and questioning the society we inhabit.

With special thanks to the Marc Karlin archive, In the Spirit of Marc Karlin (Holly Aylett, Hermione Harris and Andy Robson), LUX and Alan Miles.