Electric Edwardians

You’ve seen the television series, you may have seen a live show, you’ve bought the DVD, you’ve bought the book, now it’s time to buy another book. The BFI has just published Electric Edwardians: The Films of Mitchell and Kenyon, by Vanessa Toulmin. This is a detailed single history of the films of Sagar Mitchell and James Kenyon, lovingly illustrated with sumptuous frame stills from the extraordinary film collection of actuality films produced by the Blackburn firm before the First World War. It feels like the last word to be said on the collection, but it shouldn’t be. The book gives every encouragement for us all to take the subject further, both as film history and as a means to inform social history.