Soho Bites Podcast

Episode seven is our God and religion special and we were joined by two fantastic guests. Firstly, Alex Hester sat down with us at St Anne’s Church on Dean St, to talk about his late father, the former rector of St Anne’s, Canon John Hester.

John was in post from 1963-75, so to be the vicar of Soho at this time and chaplain to over fifty strip-clubs must have been an unusual calling.

John Hester published his memoir in 1970. Here’s the suitably groovy cover plus some pictures of the Rev John Hester out and about on his rounds.

There’s currently one copy available online here. Snap it up!

The architects’ model of John Hester’s proposed glass-sided church

We also spoke to Rev Liz Clutterbuck of Emmanuel Church, Holloway about the Emeric Pressburger penned 1957 romantic tale, Miracle in Soho. Liz makes regular contributions to the Kermode & Mayo show on BBC Radio 5 Live and is a proud member of the Wittertainment Clergy Corner.

Promo produced by Talking Pictures TV for a recent screening of Miracle in Soho.

Buy Miracle in Soho on DVD here.

The originator of Soho Bites, Dr Jingan Young, has launched a new research project. Find out all about it on the Cities in Cinema website and follow the project on Twitter.

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We'd love it if you left us a lovely REVIEW.

And if you'd like to help support the show we'd be very grateful.

Check out our spin-off series Mural Morsels

The lockdown continues, so our first interview for this episode – our German themed episode – took place over Skype. We met up (virtually) with Tony Shrimplin from the Museum of Soho. We discussed Soho’s most famous German resident and the only one (as far as I know) to have had an “ism” named after him.

Karl Marx’s blue plaque at 28 Dean St, Soho

The film chat took place before anybody had ever even heard of Covid-19 and we met up with Daniel Reifferscheid of the Talking Pictures TV Podcast in a pub! Do you remember those? We discussed the German Krimi film from 1964, Das Phanton von Soho which is a corker. Even if you don’t speak German you can probably guess what that title means! It’s set in Soho but we’re pretty sure not a single frame was shot outside of Germany....

Das Phantom Von Soho trailer - Can you identify whereabouts in Soho this was filmed?

As well as making the Talking Picture TV Podcast, Daniel Reifferscheid produces (at least) two more film related podcasts – Prestes a Ver and You Know The Score. At least one of them is Portuguese. See if you can figure out which one.

Das Phantom von Soho is from a genre known as Krimifilms. There’s a list of other examples of the genre on IMDB.

And if you can’t get enough of that groovy, sleazy kriminalfilm-musik, check out this playlist.

And the genre of Krimi films is built around the work of Edgar Wallace who led a very colourful life. You can read about him in this interesting article from the Guardian.

The founder of Soho Bites, Dr Jingan Young, has launched a new research project. Find out all about it on the Cities in Cinema website and follow the project on Twitter.

Thank you for listening.

Follow us on Twitter (or X - whatever)

If Musk starts charging, find us on our new Threads feed

Email us at [email protected]

We'd love it if you left us a lovely REVIEW.

And if you'd like to help support the show we'd be very grateful.

Check out our spin-off series Mural Morsels

Attention jiving scum! This is one is straight from the fridge dad.

It doesn't get more Soho than Beat Girl (1960) - coffee shops, beatniks, strip clubs, The 2 i's.... it's got the lot.

Gillian Hills leads the cast of Beat Girl, which also stars Adam Faith, Christopher Lee, Shirley Ann Field and, in a very small role, a young Oliver Reed.

We met novelist, Des Burkinshaw in the bar of the Soho Theatre to talk about Beat Girl which is the closest we could find to a bohemian coffee bar.

Des is a huge fan of John Barry, who wrote the music for Beat Girl and he recently concluded a two year stint as the presenter of the Museum of Soho Show on Soho Radio.

You can stream Beat Girl right now on TPTV Encore.

Also on TPTV Encore is this 2016 BFI interview with the star of Beat Girl, Gillian Hills, about the making of the film. It's well worth a watch.

Back in the day, Des actually met one of the stars of Beat Girl and grabbed this selfie.

Gillian Hills released a four part podcast about her life in December 2021.

Follow Gillian on Facebook.

Our other guest for this episode is Paris based journalist Hanna Steinkopf-Frank. Paris is some distance from Soho - the connection is that Gillian Hills became a Yé-yé singer and Hannah came on to talk about this genre.

What's Yé-yé? Find out in this article by Hannah.

Follow Hannah on Twitter and check out her website.

You can also follow Des on Twitter.

There' s a LOT of music in this episode. Here's a track list:

Eiko Shuri - Yé-Yé

France Gall - Poupée de cire, poupée de son

Françoise Hardy...

Murder mystery? Rom-com? And, as an afterthought.... wartime boosterism?

East of Piccadilly (1941) was known as "The Strangler" in the US and was directed by Harold Huth. It stars Judy Campbell & Sebastian Shaw and was written by the then quite young J Lee Thompson. It tells the story of a murder investigation and is (extremely) loosely based on a real life case, that of the "The Soho Strangler".

1940s UK film expert, Mel Byron, comes all the way in from Talking Picture TV Podcast HQ to talk about the film. It's her third visit to the podcast - she wasn't that keen on Street of Shadows and her second visit was for Soho Conspiracy which is possibly the worst film ever made. Apologies to Mel. Will she like this one more?

The 1930s Soho Strangler case upon which the film is supposedly based, is largely forgotten now but not by our other guest, Michael J Buchanan Dunne. Mike is the creator of the Murder Mile podcast and at the time of publication has just released the third episode of a TEN PART series about the Soho Strangler.

At the time if writing this, East of Piccadilly is simply NOT AVAILABLE to stream (legally) anywhere online. It does sometime crop up on certain streaming serivces - if you fill in THIS FORM you will be notified when it appears (can't guarantee it will be free though!)

However, if you are based in London or are ever a visitor to our beautiful city, you can watch East of Piccadilly in the BFI Library. Grab yourself a terminal and ask one of the nice librarions for help. The reference number is N-626109.

Did the director of East of Piccadilly, Harold Huth cast himself in a small uncredited role as a Spiv in Joe's cafe? You decide.

The Spanish version of the film poster is ace!

A 1938 article in the Chicago Tribune about the Soho Strangler case.

Mel Byron is on Twitter and has a website.

You can also follow Talking Pictures and the podcast on Twitter.

Murder Mile Mike is on the Twitters too as his girlfriend. Catch up on the Murder Mile podast HERE.

If you want to keep up to date the efforts to bring the Kino Cinema back from the dead, follow Kino Quickies.

The originator of Soho Bites,

A series of short features made for Soho Radio. Each week we talk to a different person about somebody in the Spirit of Soho Mural. This week, Dom talks to Keith Ducklin from The Royal Armories Museum in Leeds about fencing master, Henry Angelo.