Abstract
This chapter examines Jimmy McGovern’s The Street (BBC1 2006–09) as a text which draws upon familiar and recurring iconographic tropes of Northern identity to inculcate fixed regional and socio-political narratives of class representation. Central to this analysis is the titular ‘street’ itself, which is positioned as a critical symbolic mechanism in the series’ mythologising of everyday life.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Blandford, S. (2013). Jimmy McGovern. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Cooke, L. (2005). ‘The New Social Realism of Clocking Off’ in Popular Television Drama: Critical Perspectives (eds.) J. Bignell, & S. Lacey. Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp. 183–197.
Creeber, G. (2004). Serial Television: Big Drama on the Small Screen. London: BFI.
Dodd, P. (1990). ‘Lowryscapes: Recent writings about ‘the North’’, Critical Quarterly, 32(2), 17–28.
Duguid, M. (date unknown). ‘McGovern, Jimmy (1949-)’, available at http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/510555/ [accessed June 14 2015].
Edensor, T. (2015). ‘Sensing National Spaces: Representing the Mundane in English Film and Television’ in European Cinema and Television Cultural Policy and Everyday Life (eds.) I. Bondebjerg, E. Novrup Redvall, & A. ad Higson. Basingsoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 58–80.
Forrest, D., & Johnson, B. (2016). ‘Introduction: Northern Stardom’, The Journal of Popular Television, 4(2), 195–198.
Free, M. (2011). ‘On the edge: The Irish in Britain as a troubled and troubling presence in the work of Jimmy McGovern and Alan Bleasdale’, Irish Studies Review, 19(01), 55–64.
Gleeson, S. (2014). ‘Jimmy McGovern: ‘We should be in a golden age of drama but we’re not’, available at http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/stage/jimmy-mcgovern-we-should-be-in-a-golden-age-of-drama-but-we-re-not-1.1821920 [accessed January 5 2015].
Hanley, L. (2012). Estates: An Intimate History (New Edition). London: Granta Press.
Moran, J. (2004). ‘Housing, memory and everyday life in contemporary Britain’, Cultural Studies, 18(4), 607–627.
Moran, J. (2005). Reading The Everyday. London: Routledge.
Rampton, J. (2006), ‘Jimmy McGovern: Street life’, available at http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/jimmy-mcgovern-street-life-473719.html [accessed December 13 2015].
Russell, D. (2004). Looking North: Northern England and the National Imagination. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Savage, M. (2015). Social Class in the 21st Century. London: Pelican.
Schmid, S. (2007). ‘Between L.S. Lowry and Coronation Street: Salford Cultural Identities’ in Thinking Northern: Textures of Identity in the North of England (ed.) C. Ehland. Amsterdam: Rodolpi.
Shields, R. (1991). Places on the Margin: Alternative Geographies of Modernity. London: Routledge.
Thorpe, V. (2010), ‘TV drama must stop relying on irony and costumes, says Jimmy McGovern’, available at http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2010/nov/07/jimmy-mcgovern-tv-drama-irony [accessed July 7 2015].
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2017 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Forrest, D. (2017). Jimmy McGovern’s The Street and the Politics of Everyday Life. In: Forrest, D., Johnson, B. (eds) Social Class and Television Drama in Contemporary Britain. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55506-9_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55506-9_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-55505-2
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-55506-9
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)