The Making of Shelagh Delaney and a Cultural Revolution

Tastes of Honey

The ultimate insight into the ground-breaking, firebrand playwright who changed Britain's cultural and social landscape and put working-class lives centre stage.

Makes an unassailable case for [Delaney's] importance in British theatre history while showing how her posthumous reputation has been subtly slighted... splendid and illuminating

Selina Todd’s biography of Shelagh Delaney, Tastes of Honey, is great

In this subtle, thoughtful book, Selina Todd sets out to do more than simply retell Delaney’s rags-to-riches story… Instead Todd argues that Delaney offers a route to rethinking the ways in which women’s lives in the mid-20th century are routinely written up, especially by feminists

Shelagh Delaney keeps her mystery even from beyond the grave, but anyone who values what is best in British theatre and film will want to join Selina Todd as she digs deep into the brilliance of Delaney’s work – and her character. It’s a riveting book

This is a sympathetic and perceptive account of a fine writer at a critical moment in our cultural life. Selina Todd’s enthusiasm for her subject is infectious and she captures precisely the spirit of the times. A lovely and enjoyable book

Tastes of Honey illuminates the life of a woman of blazing talent

[A] vivid portrayal… As a social historian, Todd demonstrates the many factors, other than sheer talent and determination, that went into the “making” of Shelagh Delaney…she was part of the new wave of working-class talent that during the Fifties and Sixties transformed every area of creative life, from theatre and literature to art, music and fashion

A clever, hopeful and cheering book…shocking and sobering on how working people have forcibly become divorced from the arts

Selina Todd’s portrait of the artist against the backdrop of her changing times pays a warmly illuminating tribute to Delaney's unique voice… Todd shows in jaw-dropping detail the depth of the hostility to Delaney and her unapologetic work

Delaney was a trailblazer... Tastes of Honey is a biography of a writer whose output has – at times – been overshadowed by distorted versions of her story. By carefully emphasizing the radical qualities of Delaney’s oeuvre, and challenging many of the clichés that make up the mythology, Selina Todd offers a more nuanced view

Todd shows how Delaney anticipated the concerns of the Women's Liberation Movement of the 1970s, and reveals her continuing influence in the light of similar problems facing working-class women now…fascinating

Todd presents a warm but balanced view of a woman who made her own choices. Her work benefits from excellent digging in the BBC archives and many detailed interviews

Not just a terrific study of the life and work of an extraordinary talent but a bracing contextualisation of her in terms of class, culture, sex, youth, politics and the North. Selina Todd’s biography of Delaney is as tough, smart and lively as Shelagh herself

Sparky . . . captures what made that 1958 play [A Taste of Honey] an era-defining classic

A breezy, readable new biography… Todd’s portrait is enlivened by anecdotes from friends and family… she uses a polyphonic approach…including many examples from other ordinary women’s adjacent experiences

I...hugely enjoyed Tastes of Honey, Selina Todd’s heroic attempt to do the impossible and explain the life and work of the mysterious Shelagh Delaney. Alongside Andrea Dunbar, Delaney was our most unexpected and gifted postwar playwright

Selina Todd is Professor of Modern History at Oxford University. She grew up in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and was educated at Heaton Manor Comprehensive School and the Universities of Warwick and Sussex. She writes about class, inequality, working-class history, feminism and women’s lives in modern Britain. Her book The People: The Rise and Fall of the Working Class 1910–2010 was a Sunday Times bestseller and was described by the Observer as ‘A book we badly need’. Based on the voices of working-class people themselves, it charted the history of ordinary workers, housewives, children and pensioners over the turbulent twentieth century.

'A sympathetic and perceptive account of a fine writer at a critical moment in our cultural life' KEN LOACH 
 
On 27 May 1958, A Taste of Honey opened in a small fringe theatre in London. Written by a nineteen-year-old bus driver's daughter from Salford, the play exposed a deeply polarised society in Britain, sparked press and political outrage and transformed its young author into an unexpected star. Shelagh Delaney's assertive female characters struck an immediate chord with working-class women who dreamed of more than just suburban housewifery, and her work and legacy would go on to inspire future generations of writers, musicians and artists. 
 
 This is the remarkable story of how a working-class teenager stormed theatreland, exploded old certainties about class, race, sex and taste, and blazed an incendiary new path in British culture. 
 
'A riveting book' DAVID HARE

Selina Todd

The great strength of Selina Todd's Snakes and Ladders . . . is the richness of her presentation of it as a lived experience, whether upwards or downwards . . . intensely readable . . . a stimulating and necessary redress

In this fascinating, important book, Professor Selina Todd shows us that 'levelling up' has always been a far more chancy, even unrewarding, business than we like to think

Structured around the personal stories of people who have experienced upward social mobility over the past 140 years or so . . . The social history that Todd deals with here is fascinating . . . The pandemic, as she argues, has reminded us that the jobs we reward are often not those that matter most. So instead of (or as well as) agonising about who gets to join the elite, we need to redefine the elite itself

Snakes and Ladders arrives at a moment of particular relevance . . . this pandemic is an opportunity to look at what is "essential" in work and to reward it appropriately. Society is only as mobile as its structures allow. And it would be no bad thing if affording status to all strata of society became more important than "getting ahead"

Fascinating... [Snakes &amp; Ladders is a] rich and well-observed historical account

A cogent history of social mobility in Britain . . . The kind of book where you underline almost every line

A brilliant, forcefully argued book that should be read by anyone wondering how we reached our current crisis point, and what we can do to level up

Snakes and Ladders is an enjoyable read and captures the essence of the different periods it covers. Selina Todd turns cold statistics into living histories with her very readable style

Todd takes a brisk journey through seven generations from the late 19th century to today's millennials... Refreshingly, Todd is as concerned with the story of women's efforts to ascend the social ladder as men's - an important corrective to the classic cohort studies on social mobility... [Snakes and Ladders] is a trove of stories of human hope and disappointment

The great British social mobility myth

'Intensely readable... A stimulating and necessary redress' David Kynaston, Spectator 
 
Politicians say social mobility is real... this book proves otherwise. 
 
From servants' children who became clerks in Victorian Britain, to managers made redundant by the 2008 financial crash, travelling up or down the social ladder has been a fact of British life for more than a century. 
 
Drawing on hundreds of personal stories, Snakes and Ladders tells the hidden history of how people have really experienced that social mobility in both directions. It shows how a powerful elite on the top rungs have clung to their perch, as well as introducing us to the unsung heroes who created more room at the top. As we face political crisis after crisis, Snakes and Ladders argues that only by creating greater opportunities for everyone to thrive can we ensure the survival of our society. 
 
'A fascinating, important book' Mail on Sunday 
 
'A trove of stories of human hope and disappointment' New Statesman 
 
'Fascinating... A rich and well-observed historical account' Financial Times

Selina Todd

Praise for Snakes and Ladders

The great strength of Selina Todd's Snakes and Ladders . . . is the richness of her presentation of it as a lived experience, whether upwards or downwards . . . intensely readable . . . a stimulating and ...

In this fascinating, important book, Professor Selina Todd shows us that 'levelling up' has always been a far more chancy, even unrewarding, business than we like to think

Structured around the personal stories of people who have experienced upward social mobility over the past 140 years or so . . . The social history that Todd deals with here is fascinating . . . The pandemic, ...

The great strength of Selina Todd's Snakes and Ladders . . . is the richness of her presentation of it as a lived experience, whether upwards or downwards . . . intensely readable . . . a stimulating and ...

In this fascinating, important book, Professor Selina Todd shows us that 'levelling up' has always been a far more chancy, even unrewarding, business than we like to think

Structured around the personal stories of people who have experienced upward social mobility over the past 140 years or so . . . The social history that Todd deals with here is fascinating . . . The pandemic, ...

The great strength of Selina Todd's Snakes and Ladders . . . is the richness of her presentation of it as a lived experience, whether upwards or downwards . . . intensely readable . . . a stimulating and ...

In this fascinating, important book, Professor Selina Todd shows us that 'levelling up' has always been a far more chancy, even unrewarding, business than we like to think

Structured around the personal stories of people who have experienced upward social mobility over the past 140 years or so . . . The social history that Todd deals with here is fascinating . . . The pandemic, ...

Books by Selina Todd

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