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Thank you for taking the time to answer some questions, John. That's very kind of you to do.

I haven't seen the movie yet, but I was wondering how long did it take you guys to film "We'll Take Manhattan" and are there any fun memories on set you can share?

This programe is utterly trivial. Full of cliche. Wigs are unbelievable. Script is juvenile.
Not what I expect fro Ö÷²¥´óÐã4.
How do you have the nerve to present it as an intellectual programme?

Hi all; almost didn't watch but loved it! Was there then and remember seeing Jean wearing the same clothes she'd worn at the party the night before whilst walking that long legged Afghan (with legs to match hers!)! Was it Baileys' dog? Mind you now Baileys means that Irish cream based drink - which I rather enjoy on occasion.

Liz is talking utter rubbish! Loved the programme. The real photos at the end were a really nice touch. Well done!

fantastic programme. i knew a bit about david bailey but didn't know about this photoshoot before. wonderfully evocative of a time of cultural revolution. loved the sunset scene too! what cameras were used in the filming of it?

Hi John, I loved the music, but didn't see any credits for it. Can you tell us about it? Thanks

Also, was wondering which article inspired the programme? Would be interested to read it.

Mr. McKay, my family sat down to watch this tonight and it was a great watch. Brilliant acting from Helen McCrory, who played the narcissistic editor so well. The cinematography was good and i loved the transitions to the old b&w photos. I have a question. Are you and your crew part of a independent production working for the Ö÷²¥´óÐã, or did you make this separately and sell it to them? I am inquisitive as this is the career path i wish to take in the future. (Im 16)

Loved the drama. It was very well done. The only thing it mentioned the Beatles at the beginning saying nobody had heard of them. Bailey had a bit of a Beatles haircut which I didnt think anybody had till the Beatles were famous!

Thank you for your persistence, it was wonderful. You captured the elegance of the era & the exciting changing times ahead. It also captured Bailey's rawness & love of Jean.
Using the original photos from the New York shoot in the closing credits was a beautiful touch and completed the programme.
I will be watching it again on iplayer, I loved it!

I'm not at all interested in fashion, quite the opposite, but I enjoyed the film.
Karen was convincing and so was Aneurin, Helen McCrory was as usual good too, as a proto Anna Wintour like figure.
Despite the small budget it looked great too.

To be an anorak, as someone who works in the airline biz, I can say that the VC-10 aircraft at the start was not yet in airline service in 1962 (if it had been, it might have sold more!)
But where else are you going to get a first generation jet airliner in BOAC livery, to shoot, if you cannot have CGI?

3. Lizs, how do you know if it was 'trivial' if you posted before the film had even finished, or were you just topping up your daily rant at the Ö÷²¥´óÐã dosage?
I did not expect a highbrow event here, there is stacks of that sort of programme on Ö÷²¥´óÐã4 (and Ö÷²¥´óÐã2).
Fashion or not, the emergence of ambitious and chippy working class types like Bailey into areas hitherto the preserve of the upper class, was an important cultural and economic signpost of the 1960's.

(Love the touch at the end on the flight home with Bailey dismissing pop music in what would be the 'jazz decade').

John McKay has done a fantastic job. I have never seen anything so powerful and beautifully written about my times and aspirations. In 1962 I was sixteen, two years later I would be at Hornsey College of Art with a Rolleichord. The way the transition from medium format to 35mm was handled in so few words against the changing social times was truly breathtaking. I’m now an aspiring author and whether I succeed or not, Kindle, Amazon and ebooks are about to do exactly the same destruction job on the stuffy, funny old world of book publishing. If you have shares in a publisher dump them immediately.

What wonderful times to have lived through. Baby Boomers are a fantastically blessed generation. Aneurin Barnard definitely has the Bailey look but even more handsome. Karen Gillan carried off a good performance but only looked the part in the closing stills. She just doesn’t have the Shrimp eyes, like Sixties models Joanna Lumley and Wendy Marler - some sort of anglo-saxon aristocratic gene - its in the high eye-brows and droopy eyes. Sadly time has not stood still regarding any of our looks, particularly David Bailey and David Hemmings - check him out in Blow-up and again in Gladiator. Life sucks and gravity pulls. However fabulous, amazing times - eat your heart out kids.

Hi John, I am a little ashamed to say it but I didn't know who David Bailey was before seeing the ads for the movie. I did some research and had a bit more background information but was completely blown away by how wonderful the movie was made and the documentary that followed. I am now completely reinspired to do more with my photography and intend to be very 'persistent' from now on. I've only been doing photography for 3 years and I'm also a single mom so don't have alot of time on my hands and have a hell of alot to learn but I would really appreciate it if you could email me some details on how I would be able to possibly apply to be an apprentice for Mr Bailey. My email address is [Personal details removed by Moderator]. Thank you so much for making such a wonderful film about a truly gifted man.

I did so enjoy watching your interpretation of the irreverent Bailey. I remember him so well - how he got away with it in the hidebound fashion world of the time I still don't know.

I thought it caught the feeling of the times without being overdone staying with the easy lightness of the period. Surprised how much it got to me. I was a bit younger but remember the huge impression Jean made well enough. While that horrible snobbish rudeness of Lady Clare hiding behind her sense of class superiority really does now seem like something from a previous century but that was real enough then too. The face of Karen playing Jean...I think she caught something really quite touching and real and that was no easy thing given Shrimpton's quite extraordinary beauty. She brought her alive. Bailey well he was a genius behind the amiable rogue and that came out charmingly too.

I really don't understand some people! I couldn't believe I saw a complaint about this film are people blind? it was STUNNING it was so alive and colourful and most importantly real, the actors were amazing the style the pace I just smiled all the way through it captured how I feel David Bailey is like and its shame cause I think fashions changed its all about who know's who and its not about beauty or art anymore this is art and me myself I feel this film is a masterpiece, I'm just so happy and I really enjoyed the acting as well, this film deserves to be on the big screens, I mentioned on the other blog about this as its the same sorta style to No-Where boy and An Education which I LOVE! Its good that they have these comments because when I watch something I really that gives me so much pleasure I really want to let the person know who created it, so if you are still reading this THANK YOU!! PS especially loved the bit about the lines about the rich people getting their jobs because of daddy ha I clapped!

I wasn't going to watch but changed my mind and am glad I did...great work all round - in particular the great choice of outdoor locations, but why does the Ö÷²¥´óÐã never credit the music and the musicians?

I was enthralled by this programme. Top class drama extremely well acted. The actor who so admirably portrayed Jean Shimpton deserves to have a successful future with her looks and poise. It would be good to see more of the photos taken as part of this drama, and perhaps compare with the originals.

My message to Liz - I watch Ö÷²¥´óÐã 4 almost exclusively (what else is there?) and this piece is possibly the best thing I've ever seen. Proves you don’t need a big budget to create a great movie. It really captured the times so perfectly. Like the Stones, Twiggy, Bailey, Duffy, Terence Donovan, Stanley Kubrik and Ken Russell inspired the rest of us, everything was now possible in our own little worlds, unlike the deference of the previous age. If you want to go further down this road John, I think Karen Gillan has something of the Mandy Rice Davis about her. Also boxer Freddie Mills, impresario Larry Parnes and record producer Joe Meek are fascinating untold stories of the period. Whatever your next production, I look forward to it.

John, yep that type flew first in '62, not carrying passengers across the pond until '65 though!
No matter, it's a good symbol of the oncoming 'British Invasion' - which Bailey was an early part of.
With shooting in New York, apart from obvious large buildings, were there issues with post early 60's 'street furniture'.
I ask because the makers of the original series of 'Life On Mars' mentioned the need to CGI out all the satellite dishes on houses, in 1973 the only dish near Manchester was at Jodrell Bank!

I wasn't going to watch the programme, although as a photographer I knew that in reality I wouldn't miss it!
Obviously there was liberties taken with exactly what was said and to whom but I had an enjoyable time watching it.
You did well to keep the streets shots period as NY has a lot of modern tat clogging it's streets.

Hi. Just watched We'll Take Manhattan. Really enjoyed it as we do all Ö÷²¥´óÐã4 dramas. Wondered if you were going to put an album together of all the music/songs, as really loved them all. Many thanks.

We'll Take was terrific, actors, photography, direction, dialogue, everything. Great film, which I enjoyed so much. Four beats to the bar and no cheating really struck a chord with me. I grew up in Bow a few hundred yards from where Bailey lived in Mile End. Like him I was fascinated by film photography but he made it, I didn't. The following sonnet is my tribute to him.

The Real Thing?

So ‘Four beats to the bar and no cheating’.
David Bailey was quoting Count Basie,
Answering the old question, ‘What is Jazz?’
Jazz like a photo capture, so fleeting
And if the notes are there, so the image
Must be real, accurate, no retuning,
No time for rehearsals, pluck the guitar
Or press the shutter release on your stage.

Bailey does this with film photography,
Not digital. Holding the negative,
You say, yes, this is a truth I can feel.
But when you have only pixels, briefly,
Pixels stripped from sensors, drained through a sieve -
Then all you have is something not quite real.


Derrick Gaskin (Del)

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I recorded this and have only just watched it - how it brought back memories of Bailey! I worked with him in the mid 1970s to shoot ads for the cosmetic company I worked for. He didn't suffer fools and I've seen him being very caustic when a colleague tried to tell him how to do his job. However I always got on well with him as I believed that you didn't book Bailey to tell him how to do his job. When I was expecting my first child he was incredibly sweet on shoots, always making sure I had a chair to sit on and organising Caesar (who ran his household) to give me a good lunch! Happy Days!

To a photographer and contemporary of Bailey this was an enthralling watch. I love Karen Gillan, even though she was carrying a millstone in this role - playing the iconic Shrimp. The guy was utterly gorgeous almost mesmeric, though of course his accent was a bit off - Bailey now looks like a baggy sofa with bad springs, he only sounded like one when he was younger. Everything was so personal to me - my pal Wendy was a contemporary model with Shrimp and was a bit too classy for Bailey, she mostly worked with Litchfield and Snowdon (now I understand why). I worked in Fleet Street, though a lot later 1978 and Bailey was always buying old cameras, even then for his company Third Eye - he would always send in these wonderful skinny birds in posh frocks with cut glass accents to pick up stuff. It was a wonderful experience working in that environment, with the likes of Carl Sutton , ex Picture Post and all his Fleet Street mates. I can perfectly understand Annie's affection, where would we be now without him. Ironically, my daughter is a fashion photographer and journalist (and a model) and absolutely nothing has changed. Bailey opened the door to the SLR bringing together the extemporary world of photojournalism and fashion.

Wonderful cast,have watched it on 'iplayer 4 times !Karen gillan is a believable 'Shrimp',not an easy role,emulating the original ! The story of David bailey,and his muse,threw some light on their careers for me. A very watchable story ,excellent script cannot fault a 'frame', well done writer chappie !!!

I enjoyed the programe and it was good that my father John Cole's Studiofive got a mention too. I am not so sure the studio was quite as disorganised as the programe showed! Anyway thanks for the reference.