Nostalgia Interviews with Chris Deacy

Cabin at the Movies Saturday 8 August 2026

My guest this week is fellow Cabin FM presenter Danny Cooper who talks about some brilliant film pairings, including Face/Off & Con Air, Under Siege & Speed, and The Graduate & Dirty Dancing. We’ll also be taking our regular look back at this week in movie history, including a Cabin at the Movies first: Bernard Herrmann’s iconic score for North by Northwest, my own favourite Hitchcock movie. It comes in the week that would have marked the birthday of Alfred Hitchcock - the Master of Suspense.

Cabin at the Movies Saturday 8 August 2026 My guest this week is fellow Cabin FM presenter Danny Cooper who talks about some brilliant film pairings, including Face/Off & Con Air, Under Siege & Speed, and The Graduate & Dirty Da…

Billy Liar (John Schlesinger, 1963)

‘Billy Liar’ has often been described as one of the defining British kitchen-sink dramas of the 1960s, but there is also something of Walter Mitty about it. Tom Courtenay plays Billy Fisher, an undertaker’s clerk trapped in a dead-end Yorkshire job who spends much of his life escaping into elaborate fantasies in which he is important, admired and successful. The tragedy of Billy, though, is that he mistakes his problems for being geographical rather than psychological....

Billy Liar (John Schlesinger, 1963) ‘Billy Liar’ has often been described as one of the defining British kitchen-sink dramas of the 1960s, but there is also something of Walter Mitty about it. Tom Courtenay plays Billy Fisher, an und…

Cabin FM Tuesday 4 August 2026

Highlights from Afternoons on Cabin, featuring birthdays, film reviews, community news, On This Day In History, and a look back at what was number 1 in the charts on this day in 1962, 1974 and 1986, as well as top music from across the decades.

Cabin FM Tuesday 4 August 2026 Highlights from Afternoons on Cabin, featuring birthdays, film reviews, community news, On This Day In History, and a look back at what was number 1 in the charts on this day in 1962, 1974 and 1986…

Eagles of the Republic (Tarik Saleh, 2025)

‘Eagles of the Republic’ is a biting and intelligent political drama that explores the uneasy relationship between art and authoritarian power. At its centre is George (Fares Fares), a successful middle-aged Egyptian actor who finds himself recruited by the regime to star in a state-sponsored film portraying the country’s president. It is less an invitation than a command. Refusal is not really an option, and the threats soon become deeply personal, with sinister suggestions that his teenage son might conveniently be involved in a road accident if he fails to cooperate....

Eagles of the Republic (Tarik Saleh, 2025) ‘Eagles of the Republic’ is a biting and intelligent political drama that explores the uneasy relationship between art and authoritarian power. At its centre is George (Fares Fares), a successful m…

Jason and the Argonauts (Don Chaffey, 1963)

‘Jason and the Argonauts’ remains one of the great fantasy adventures of the twentieth century and, more than sixty years after its release, the astonishing stop-motion animation of Ray Harryhausen continues to inspire awe. Based on the Greek legend of Jason’s quest for the Golden Fleece, the film follows the rightful heir to the throne of Thessaly as he embarks on a perilous voyage to Colchis....

Jason and the Argonauts (Don Chaffey, 1963) ‘Jason and the Argonauts’ remains one of the great fantasy adventures of the twentieth century and, more than sixty years after its release, the astonishing stop-motion animation of Ray Harryhausen…

The Goonies (Richard Donner, 1985)

‘The Goonies’ has Steven Spielberg's fingerprints all over it. Although directed by Richard Donner from a story by Spielberg and a screenplay by Chris Columbus, it shares many of the themes that run throughout Spielberg’s work: children who are underestimated by adults, groups of young outsiders who band together, and extraordinary adventures that ultimately restore family and community. Like ‘E.T.’, it celebrates childhood resourcefulness, suggesting that children often understand far more than the grown-ups around them....

The Goonies (Richard Donner, 1985) ‘The Goonies’ has Steven Spielberg’s fingerprints all over it. Although directed by Richard Donner from a story by Spielberg and a screenplay by Chris Columbus, it shares many of the themes t…

Tickets (Ermanno Olmi, Abbas Kiarostami & Ken Loach, 2005)

‘Tickets’ is a portmanteau film made by three directors working broadly within the realist tradition: Iran’s Abbas Kiarostami, Italy’s Ermanno Olmi and Britain’s Ken Loach. Although each section has its own visual texture and dramatic rhythm, the stories are connected by a common setting and theme. They all take place aboard the same train, travelling from Austria to Rome on the same day, and each explores questions of migration, privilege, displacement and moral responsibility....

Tickets (Ermanno Olmi, Abbas Kiarostami & Ken Loach, 2005) ‘Tickets’ is a portmanteau film made by three directors working broadly within the realist tradition: Iran’s Abbas Kiarostami, Italy’s Ermanno Olmi and Britain’s Ken Loach. Although each section ha…

The Misfits (John Huston, 1961)

‘The Misfits’ could almost be categorized as an anti-Western, a film less interested in heroic frontiers than in characters who have seen better days and no longer quite belong to the world around them. In that sense, it reminded me of ‘The Last Showgirl’, with Pamela Anderson playing a performer whose glamour has faded and who is forced to confront the possibility that the life she understood has already passed her by....

The Misfits (John Huston, 1961) ‘The Misfits’ could almost be categorized as an anti-Western, a film less interested in heroic frontiers than in characters who have seen better days and no longer quite belong to the world around …

Cabin at the Movies Saturday 25 July 2026

This week I am joined by local secondary school teacher Will Barber to explore the power of film in the classroom. Together we discuss how movies such as Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Juno, Bonnie and Clyde and Slumdog Millionaire can spark discussion, debate and critical thinking among students. I also play the unforgettable theme from my favourite film, Cape Fear, as a new Apple TV adaptation is released this week, and share my thoughts on Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey.

Cabin at the Movies Saturday 25 July 2026 This week I am joined by local secondary school teacher Will Barber to explore the power of film in the classroom. Together we discuss how movies such as Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, One Flew Over the…

The Odyssey (Christopher Nolan, 2026)

Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey’ is perhaps the most ambitious film of his career, adapting one of the foundational texts of Western literature while filtering it through the themes that have fascinated him for decades: memory, time, identity, guilt, destiny and the elusive search for home. Homer’s epic has inspired everything from ‘The Wizard of Oz’ and ‘Star Wars’ to ‘O Brother, Where Art Thou?’, while Martin Scorsese’s ‘Taxi Driver’ has often been interpreted as a modern Odyssey in which the wandering warrior returns home psychologically incapable of reconnecting with society....

The Odyssey (Christopher Nolan, 2026) Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey’ is perhaps the most ambitious film of his career, adapting one of the foundational texts of Western literature while filtering it through the themes that have fasc…