Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush (1967)

From director Clive Donner (What’s New Pussycat?) this film is an irresistibly cheeky Pop Art comedy about a hapless young man (Barry Evans from the Doctor comedy series) trying to lose his virginity during the Free Love Generation.

Jamie McGregor (Evans) is a frustrated “knicker obsessed” teenager living with his parents on a council estate in Stevenage where pink blancmange is served for breakfast and his Dad sulks if he can’t have quiet for the football results.

Jamie is obsessed with losing his virginity and catching up to his friend’s success with the opposite sex. “The whole country is having it off, and it’s as if I’m a leper!” complains the frustrated sixth-former direct to camera.

He works as a delivery boy for a supermarket and spends his time whizzing around on his bike taking cardboard boxes of groceries to needy housewives. But they’re never as needy as he wants them to be whilst the girls he knew at school have either already got well-off boyfriends with cars or are locked into a pattern of all too adult behaviour.

Jamie fantasises about something more than local bird “runny old Linda” (Adrienne Posta), his first date, but all he gets for his trouble is a cold evening standing about the local park.

Next up in his attempted conquests is a dance at the local church with Paula (Sheila White), but Jamie manages nothing more than a kiss when the lights fuse. Paula really has the hots for the priest.

An invitation to spend the weekend partying with capable Caroline (Angela Scoular) at the well-heeled Beauchamp’s appears promising but ends in drunken frustration. Denholm Elliot is magnificently malevolent as Caroline’s wine-loving father.

Finally, Jamie gets a date with the girl of his dreams, Mary Gloucester (the delectable Judy Geeson), and it appears his luck has finally changed, but Jamie’s disgust at her sexual liberation scuppers the romance.

As the boys look forward to starting University up in Manchester, Jamie reveals that he’s no longer interested in playing the field but then catches sight of Mary’s friend Claire (Diane Keen) who flashes him an encouraging smile . . .

Scandalous (at the time) for its brief flashes of on-screen nudity, and featuring a stunning psych-pop soundtrack with the Spencer Davis Group (on-camera in the obligatory party sequence), Stevie Winwood and Traffic.

Adapted from a novel by author Hunter Davies (who wrote the official Beatles biography in 1968) and shot on location in Stevenage, the film is a valuable archive of new town planning and of a time when kids played carefree and unlooked-for in the streets.

Jamie McGregor
Barry Evans
Mary Gloucester
Judy Geeson
Caroline Beauchamp
Angela Scoura
Linda
Adrienne Posta
Paula
Sheila White
Audrey
Vanessa Howard
Claire
Diane Keen
Mrs McGregor
Moyra Fraser
Mr McGregor
Michael Bates
Mrs Beauchamp
Maxine Audley
Mr Beauchamp
Denholm Elliott
Spike
Christopher Timothy
Craig Foster
Nicky Henson

Director
Clive Donner

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