The marvelous @LukeHaines_News on #Kellett

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The popular mythology of Great Britain in the mid to late 60s was one of a land embracing the sexual revolution, the new rock n roll, the permissive New Age, America, drugs, esoteric religion...perhaps in London, but the lysergic gurus of California were not in the thoughts of those betting shop buddhas of the forgotten north. The Gods of Rock had a long way to go before they could usurp the Lords Of The Ring. The Wrestling ring.

Mick McManus, Jackie Pallo, Kendo Nagasaki, Giant Haystacks; all superstars watched by millions on ITV's World of Sport from the mid 60s to the early 80s.

And then there was Les Kellett....

Les was a hard man, perhaps the hard man. Hands the size of shovels and a seemingly limitless pain threshold. Kellett was adored by the public; the geezers in the Locarno, the wives, the mothers-in-law, and the whole family. Les was also feared and respected by his fellow wrestlers – he'd seen a bit of life, had Les; in the Merchant Navy and in the wrestling ring throughout his 40s, 50s, and even 60s. You could chance your arm and say that Les Kellett was the cultural signifier that 'England never really swung like a pendulum' - try that one out on Les and you would have felt those coffin-like hands closing around your neck.

@harveyauzorst script for 'Kellett' has an ace up its sleeve. It does not play its subject matter for laughs – as all other investigations of the occult world of British Wrestling throughout the 60s and 70s do. Even Simon Garfield's peerless 1995 account 'The Wrestling' can't quite stand up like a man and play it straight. 'Kellett' is an epic, a road movie even – with Les rattling up and down the A-roads and English motorways, always the next bout, always searching for more pain. Up and down, nationwide through the decades. Always returning home to his transport cafe and hog farm lair, where he ponders and broods – Bradford's own Colonel Kurtz, in trunks and contemplation.

'Kellett' is the history of British wrestling. Exotic Adrian Street, Big Daddy, Kendo Nagasaki, Joint Promotions, and nemesis Peter Rann all gravitate around the monolithic presence of Les. Often dismissed as mere pantomime (the outcome of bouts was predetermined but the fighting was often very real), the world of wrestling guarded its secrets in a near masonic manner.

This script travels further into the heart of darkness than anything before. The heart of darkness that was Britain in the 60s and 70s.

The heart of darkness that is one very hard man from Bradford. Les Kellett.

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