Lunch Hour

Lunch Hour is an early work from writer John Mortimer. It has an interesting pedigree as it started out as a radio play. It then became a film. Then a stage play and later dramatised for television.

It is a quirky piece which does not work. It does have an interesting performance from Shirley Anne Field who shows that she had more than just looks.

Field and Robert Stephens play a couple who work in a factory. She is a new designer, he is an executive.

They start an affair where they meet over their lunch hour. Only to find nowhere that is private for some kissing and canoodling.

He has an idea to rent a hotel room for a bit of nookie. Only to give a convoluted story to the hotel owner, rather than just rent a room for the night and invite his lover over.

When she hears that the story he told was that she was a mother of two. Come over from Scarborough on a train to meet up with her husband. She begins to imagine it.

Marking the beginning the end of their relationship as he too becomes part of this imaginary chain of events.

An interesting look at pre swinging 60s London. It is a strange hybrid of romance, drama and comedy. It just did not entirely work for me.