The White Bus

The White Bus is a 1967 short film by British director Lindsay Anderson. The screenplay was jointly adapted with Shelagh Delaney from a short story in her collection Sweetly Sings the Donkey (1963).

The main character, only referred to as 'the girl' (Patricia Healey) takes a trip in a white double-decker bus around an unnamed city she is visiting, although it is clearly meant to be Manchester; Delaney was born and grew in nearby Salford. Oddly enough, the Mayor (Arthur Lowe), a local businessman, and the council's ceremonial macebearer (John Sharp) happen also to be taking the trip.

Locations include Albert Square and its landmark, the Town Hall and the nearby Central Library. The 'model estate' of high-rise flats was shot on the Kersal Flats estate, while the factory sequences were shot in Trafford Park, including the Metropolitan-Vickers works. It also featured scenes on Cheetham Hill Road and inside Cheetham College (now demolished).

Both the exterior and interior shots of the school were taken in the former Pendleton High School for Girls - now mainly demolished, but with the original Victorian building converted to a retirement home. Using local people, Anderson also staged parodies of paintings by Manet (Le déjeuner sur l'herbe), Fragonard and Goya in Buile Hill Park in Salford. It was Anthony Hopkins film debut in a small role, while Stephen Moore is a (young) bowler-hatted man who pesters the heroine with nonsense just after her arrival.