Peter Whitehead and the Sixties Peter Whitehead

In June 1965, the Royal Albert Hall played host to a slew of American and European beat poets for an extraordinary impromptu event that marked the birth of London's gestating 1960s counterculture.

Cast in the role of historian, man-on-the-scene, and massively elevating his limited resources, Whitehead constructed Wholly Communion from the unfolding circus. As Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Gregory Corso, Harry Fainlight and Alexander Trocchi - to name but a few - took the stage, Whitehead confidently wandered with his borrowed camera, creating an extraordinary, anarchic film that is as much a landmark as the event itself.

Following this success, Whitehead was invited to film a controversial new play by radical theatre director Peter Brook. Building on the provocative question of Britain's relationship to America during the Vietnam War, Whitehead pushed the issue of complicity further, challenging the relationship between the actors - including a young Glenda Jackson - and their performances. Steadfast and provocative in its consideration of international relations and war, Benefit of the Doubt has troubling relevance to the current political climate.