Soho on Screen: Cinematic Spaces of Bohemia and Cosmopolitanism, 1948-1963

Despite Soho’s rich cultural history, there remains an absence of work on the depiction of the popular neighbourhood in film. Soho on Screen provides one of the first studies of Soho within post-war British cinema. Drawing upon historical, cultural and urban studies of the area, this book explores twelve films and theatrically released documentaries from a filmography of over one hundred Soho set productions. While predominantly focusing on low-budget, exploitation films which are exemplars of British and international filmmaking, Young also offers new readings of star and director biographies, from Laurence Harvey to Emeric Pressburger, and in so doing enlivens discussion on filmmaking in a time and place of intense social transformation, technological innovation and growing permissiveness.

Jingan Young is an award-winning playwright and journalist. She holds a PhD from King’s College London, and is a regular contributor to The Guardian. She is editor of Foreign Goods: A Selection of Writing by British East Asian Artists (Oberon Books, 2018).