Soho Bites 37: Beat Girl (1960)

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