Set in a world before Elvis, a Liverpool before the Beatles, Distant Voices, Still Lives is a remarkable evocation of working-class family life in the 40s and 50s.

In a powerful succession of searing vignettes, Davies paints an autobiographical picture of a family dominated by an oppressive patriarch. The women in the family achieve partial escape from his dominance through the popular songs of the period that punctuate the narrative, provoking the idea of ‘a kind of musical’.