New from Five Leaves: The Furnished Room

The second of our "Beats, bums and bohemians" series is now in our office - though not yet in shops or Amazon. It can be ordered for immediate supply though on

http://tinyurl.com/furnishedroom. Laura Del-Rivo's classic bed-sitter novel was first published 50 years ago - as were the others in the series, see the post below and wait patiently for a posting about Colin Wilson's Adrift in Soho. This was turned into the film West 11 by, um, Michael Winner starring Alfred Lynch as the main male character Joe and Kathleen Breck as the good-time girl Isla. The cast also included Dianna Dors. I imagine this is the only Five Leaves connection we'll ever have to Dors or Winner! The Joe in question lives in the wasteland between Notting Hill and Earl's Court, when not hanging around all-night cafes and other seedy joints. While doing so he stumbles across the opportunity to commit a murder.

Laura Del-Rivo has worked the markets at Portobello Road for decades now and, like Terry Taylor - mentioned below - had a portrait in the recent Ida Kar exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery.

Adrift in Notting Hill

As well as the Colin Wilson film tie-in mentioned in the last posting, we will be publishing a companion volume, The Furnished Room by Laura Del-Rivo, with a new introduction by Colin Wilson. This one is already a film tie-in being made into the now seldom seen West 11 which features Alfred Lynch, Eric Portman and (how rarely she is connected to Five Leaves) Diana Dors, pictured. Laura's book was first published in 1961 and the links to Wilson's book is clear as this too is set in bedsitterdom, this time in Notting Hill and Earls Court. Laura is still running a stall at Portobello Market, which will be a great place to launch the book in due course.

I cannot find a poster for West 11, and would be pleased to hear from anyone who has come across a copy. I did toy with illustrating this posting with a picture of West 11's director, but Michael Winner versus Diana Dors...