“A love letter to hamburgers and the city of Birmingham... an attempt to repeat the success of Cliff Richard’s early 1960s musicals but done cheaply and weirdly.”
Have you ever seen Cliff Richard piloting a hovercraft on a Birmingham canal? How about Cliff inventing the legendary Brumburger?
Here’s your chance…
Join us for a special screening of the 1973 cult classic Take Me High.
Based on a shared obsession with the film, organisers @punksandchancers, @deankeallandofficial and @blackcountrytype have created this one-off event to celebrate one of the few films both set and shot in Birmingham.
On the night, @punksandchancers will release a commemorative t-shirt in collaboration with @blackcountrytype and @deankeallandofficial, designed by @alfiehicks.
As Zoe says, “A film of such shonky brilliance demands its own shirt — one that, like the film, centres on Brum and Cliff’s magnificent gnashers.”
Whilst Cliff Richard emerged from the psychedelic excesses of the 1960s relatively unscathed, the same can’t be said for the production team behind Take Me High. Depending on your viewpoint, it’s either a freeform masterpiece or an improvised calamity.
The film follows Tim, a London banker whose dream of a job in New York is shattered when he’s unexpectedly transferred to Birmingham.
“I have to face it – I have to face Birmingham.”
As Dean Kelland notes: “In a time when Birmingham was often reduced to the voices of Benny from Crossroads and Pig from Pipkins, this film revisits the optimism of the Second City’s post-war modernist moment.”
Travel into Birmingham via Spaghetti Junction and see Cliff fall in love with the city — from 1970s Corporation Street to the Alpha Tower and the Council House. Finally, witness the creation of the fantastical ‘Brumburger’ restaurant in Digbeth, where Cliff leads a surreal burger-fuelled parade through New Street.
