Blow the Bloody Doors off!, Barbican

As the late 1960s faded into the early 1970s, a quartet of movies starring Michael Caine ( Alfie , The Ipcress File , The Italian Job , and Get Carter ) captured a moment of swaggering creativity and self-confidence. Caine’s charismatic mixture of sunny charm and glinting menace propels all four films through stories of crime, espionage and capers from foggy Northumberland, via swinging London, to a gridlocked Turin. All films enjoy excellent scores, which are performed live at this Barbican event together with cinematic excerpts in an evening of art, nostalgia and altogether thrilling entertainment. 

From the 1950s onwards, the louche harmonies and unsettling rhythms of jazz have been used to summon an atmosphere of smoky moral ambiguity. The creators of 1966 classic Alfie enlisted the skill of legendary saxophonist Sonny Rollins to conjure in sound the moral void that Caine’s character struggles to escape from. A more laid back kind of cocktail jazz runs through trumpeter Quincy Jones’ theme for The Italian Job, which captures the heady mix of bravado and decadence underlying the film’s adrenaline-fuelled capers. 

Working with a slightly smaller music budget, Jazz pianist and film composer Roy Budd had to be a little more creative: in the opening track he played harpsichord and piano simultaneously, opening up a slow, haunting musical scene over which a bass guitar drives threateningly. The Ipcress File was scored by the prolific James Bond composer John Barry, who created a sinister title track of smouldering muted trumpet and eerie cimbalom.  

Music director Terry Edwards has selected a distinguished band with top-level experience in rock, jazz, ska and classical music. Stars include Seb Rochford , drummer with pioneering jazz group Polar Bear, with Mark Bedford from Madness on bass guitar, and award-winning jazz flautist  Finn Peters . The band will be centre-stage in the Barbican Hall, with film segments screened above.  

Tickets: £17.50- £25

ddress & Map:  Silk St, London EC2Y 8DS  

Nearest Tube: Barbican, Moorgate