In Hanky Park, near Salford, Harry and Sally Hardcastle grow up in a society preoccupied with grinding poverty, exploited by bookies and pawnbrokers, bullied by petty officials and living in constant fear of the dole queue and the Means Test. His love affair with a local girl ends in a shotgun marriage, and, disowned by his family, Harry is tempted by crime. Sally, meanwhile, falls in love with Larry Meath, a self-educated Marxist. But Larry is a sick man and there are other more powerful rivals for her affection.

Jack Hardacre comes home on leave after three years in the army to find Milly, a pretty Londoner, billeted with his mother. He is immediately attracted, but becomes increasingly wretched because he has been trapped into an engagement by Janey Jenkins. Janey, strongly supported by her mother, is determined to hold him to it. Jack must also contend with Milly's other admirer, Joe Truman. Half distracted, Jack asks beery old Mrs Dorbell for a cure for love. She tells him - get married. Finally, at the height of a furious argument with Joe, Janey and Mrs Jenkins, Jack abruptly announces that the child Milly is carrying is his.

6 women, 5 men

An outstanding success on the English and American stages. Set in a manufacturing suburb of Manchester, is the story of respectable and responsible working-class people whose life is reduced to dogged survival. The older folks in the Hardcastle family are

In Hanky Park, near Salford, Harry and Sally Hardcastle grow up in a society preoccupied with grinding poverty, exploited by bookies and pawnbrokers, bullied by petty officials and living in constant fear of the dole queue and the Means Test. His love affair with a local girl ends in a shotgun marriage, and, disowned by his family, Harry is tempted by crime. Sally, meanwhile, falls in love with Larry Meath, a self-educated Marxist. But Larry is a sick man and there are other more powerful rivals for her affection.

Jack Hardacre comes home on leave after three years in the army to find Milly, a pretty Londoner, billeted with his mother. He is immediately attracted, but becomes increasingly wretched because he has been trapped into an engagement by Janey Jenkins. Janey, strongly supported by her mother, is determined to hold him to it. Jack must also contend with Milly's other admirer, Joe Truman. Half distracted, Jack asks beery old Mrs Dorbell for a cure for love. She tells him - get married. Finally, at the height of a furious argument with Joe, Janey and Mrs Jenkins, Jack abruptly announces that the child Milly is carrying is his.

6 women, 5 men

An outstanding success on the English and American stages. Set in a manufacturing suburb of Manchester, is the story of respectable and responsible working-class people whose life is reduced to dogged survival. The older folks in the Hardcastle family are