Saved events

Share your feedback

Britain on the Move (PG*) + live accompaniment by the Guildhall’s Electronic Music Studio

Silent Film and Live Music

,Barbican Cinema 1
A man and a woman sit at a restaurant table in a Blue Pullman train

A selection of British Transport Films, featuring fascinating footage of 1950s Britain, is accompanied by hybrid electronic and orchestral music.

In these films, shown silently with no narration, impressions of life in British industrial valleys and towns are shown alongside bucolic scenery and holiday destinations throughout the UK. Embarking on a journey through 1950s Britain, we follow the testing of a shiny new Blue Pullman train (said to be the ‘businessman’s train’ at the time) and explore new train signalling methods and mechanised track-laying. We journey through a great variety of scenery and history in Wales and Northumberland and even venture under the sea, in an Oscar-nominated short film about the colourful marine life of coastal Southwest England.

These fascinating short films about British landscape and transport are accompanied by live music written by composers and musicians of the Guildhall’s Electronic Music Studio featuring hybrid electronic and orchestral music.

Tagged with: Cinema Silent Film & Live Music

Executive Producer: Mike Roberts 
Director and Music Supervisor: Barbara De Biasi
Sound Projection: Sam Dinley

Conductor: Peter Longworth

A Future on Rail (1957, 9 min)
Any Man’s Kingdom (1956, 21 min)
Every Valley (1957, 20 min)
Between the Tides (1958, 21 min)
Blue Pullman (1960, 24 min)

Future on Rail: Music by Eleanor Fineston-Robertson and Thomas Barlow
Any Man’s Kingdom: Music by Eleanor Fineston-Robertson, Joshua Curtis, Gwen Howard, Samuel Storey
Every Valley: Music by Jasmine Meaden, Vanessa Pires Dos Santos Oliveira, Jamie Rudd, Samuel Storey, Eleanor Fineston-Robertson, Thomas Arnold
Between the Tides: Music by Ben Pease Barton, Eleanor Fineston-Robertson, Samuel Storey, Efe Yuksel, Harry Harrison, Mathis Saunier
Blue Pullman: Isabel Woodings, Eleanor Fineston-Robertson, Samuel Storey, Bronte Tucker, Chester Tribley

© BFI, Courtesy of the BFI National Archive

Event running time approximately 110 min

*Locally classified

See more film for less

Get 20% off tickets and pay no booking fees. Plus, enjoy priority booking and £6 Members’ Screenings of the latest films every Sunday (T&Cs apply)
Join Membership

Barbican Cinema 1