No Surrender (film)

No Surrender
Directed byPeter Smith
Written byAlan Bleasdale
Produced byMamoun Hassan
StarringMichael Angelis
Bernard Hill
Joanne Whalley
Ray McAnally
Elvis Costello
CinematographyMick Coulter
Edited byKevin Brownlow
Rodney Holland
Music byDaryl Runswick
Distributed byCircle Films (US)
Palace Pictures/Video (UK)
Release date
  • 1985 (1985)
Running time
100 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Budget£2.34 million[1]

No Surrender is a 1985 British comedy film written by Alan Bleasdale, directed by Peter Smith and produced by Mamoun Hassan.

Describing the commissioning process, Bleasdale said, "I went to the National Film Finance Corporation and told them I was never going to write Star Wars or Rambo Revisited or anything like that, so I just went ahead and wrote the film I wanted to write".[2]

The film is set in Liverpool during New Year's Eve. A man has been hired as the new manager of a function hall, and has to deal with the last arrangements made by his disgruntled predecessor. The hall has been simultaneously booked by rival groups of militant Catholics and Protestants, the entertainers hired for the night are inept and their acts are likely to infuriate the clients, and a marching band of the Orange Order starts playing sectarian tunes. When brawls break out within the hall, the manager has to find a way to defuse the situation.

  1. ^ "Back to the Future: The Fall and Rise of the British Film Industry in the 1980s – An Information Briefing" (PDF). British Film Institute. 2005. p. 26.
  2. ^ Johnston, Trevor (30 May 1986). "Bleasdale Beyond the Blackstuff". The List. Retrieved 3 July 2019.