The Moon Over the Alley

About the lives of a number of dwellers in a rooming-house just off the Portobello Road, well within the Loach/Garnett tradition of environmental realism, but at the same time managing the infusion of poeticism implicit in the title by means of Kurt Weill-esque songs (music by Hair arranger Galt MacDermot). Though the characters initially come across as well-trodden kitchen sink stereotypes - frustrated adolescents, suspicious middle-aged parents, a young Jamaican couple, an Irish bartender, reclusive 'dirty old man' - the film quickly disarms with its quirky humour. Laughs aside, it's a far from complacent look at the problems of an increasingly squalid London.