Cathy Come Home

Before we watched Cathy Come Home, I had heard of it but didn't really know much about it. Andy gave us a bit of background knowledge before the programme started about how it was originally aired in 1966 and at the time, the content was extremely ground-breaking and revealing. It is easy to see why.

I thought Cathy Come Home was brilliantly made. It wouldn't be right to say that you enjoyed the programme but it was certainly a very powerful watch. The story revolves around the characters of Cathy and Reg who are fictional representations of real people and real stories of the time. The programme begins on the happy note of Cathy and Reg starting their new life together, buying a house and having their first child. However everything goes downhill from this point as Reg loses his job and they cannot afford to pay their rent. They are evicted from their home and are forced to try and find other places to live while Cathy continues to have children.

From a story point of view, if you've never seen Cathy Come Home, you might wonder how this story could be so interesting. And when you think of the story in terms of screenwriting and three-act structure etc. it might not be particularly conventional, but it never stops being completely gripping. You find yourself caring for the characters a great deal and it's the sort of material that can actual evoke a bit of anger just by watching it.

The style of filmmaking is also important to its success as well I think. It is filmed in a documentary style and most of the people in the film are not actors apart from the main characters. It was all shot in real locations as well which made the story seem a lot more realistic. In the final scene of Cathy Come Home when Cathy has her children taken from her by the authorities in a train station, the camera was placed so that members of the public didn't know it was being filmed so they thought the event was actually taking place.

All in all I think Cathy Come Home was a great piece of filmmaking which helped to highlight one of the greatest social problems in Britain at the time. And although things have changed and systems are obviously different now, the message of Cathy Come Home is still sadly very relevant today.