Perhaps it’s something in the water but Bristolians seem to have something of a
Perhaps it’s something in the water, but Bristolians seem to have something of a fixation with objects flying over their heads. The Ashton Court estate in Bristol is the venue for an annual ballooning regatta and this weekend the same venue hosts a weekend of kite flying. The festival begins with a demonstration by the Precision section of the UK Pairs Sort Kite Championships. You have to find people’s vulnerability and humanity because that resonates with everyone.”But perhaps the thing Horsfield is most proud of is that during the making of Sex, Chips and Rock’n'Roll, she discovered a second career – as a rock lyricist. I have to get into everyone’s head and see things from their point of view.
“I have to be able to see the redeeming side – even of an unsympathetic character. Horsfield, herself a mother of four, and responsible for such dramas as Making Out, The Riff Raff Element and Born to Run, has made a speciality out of these family sagas But her characters are never mere ciphers. Think, for example, of the marvellously plausible, weak-willed adulterer Byron (Keith Allen) in Born to Run. While dismissing talk of a generation of “hot Scots” led by Ewan McGregor and Robert Carlyle, McFadden is pleased that actors from north of the border are no longer being asked to play parts involving only a kilt or a Claymore. “People now realise that you can have a regional accent and be a good actor,” he says “People are hungry for something different. They are sick of seeing costume dramas with plummy English accents.
They want a more real picture of life.”One such is painted by Sex, Chips and Rock’n'Roll. So I wanted to write about the girls who were very much brought up with Victorian repression coming into contact with the new culture, as represented by the band. What happens when those cultures collide is what creates the dramatic tension.”Coming on the back of such acclaimed dramas as The Crow Road, Small Faces, Bumping the Odds and Dad Savage, the role of Dallas merely underlines McFadden’s status as a leading figure in the much-hyped “Cool Caledonia” movement. Particularly in northern provincial towns, they were just coming out of the war For many, they were just coming out of the Victorian era. Things like abortion were still illegal, and single mothers were unheard of.”"The image of the Sixties is of great liberation, of swinging London with women on the Pill,” Horsfield chips in “But for many, it wasn’t quite like that.