IN THE summer of 1986, Buttershaw estate was the backdrop to a new film - a raunchy comedy about two teenage babysitters having a fling with a married man.

Rita, Sue and Bob Too, which has just been released on Blu-ray as a 30th anniversary edition, pictured local locations including Haworth Main Street.

The script was written by local girl Andrea Dunbar, whose talent was spotted with a play she wrote, aged 15, for a school project.

Not everyone was happy. In 1987 many Buttershaw residents resented their neighbourhood portrayed as a shabby sink estate with sofas rotting in weed-choked gardens and slanging matches spilling onto tatty streets.

“That might be Andrea Dunbar’s life, not the lifestyle of most people here,” said one woman, at a protest meeting prior to the film’s Bradford premiere.

But Andrea, who grew up in Buttershaw, simply wrote about what she knew.

Pregnant at 14, she was a teenage mother living on an estate in the grip of unemployment.

In contrasting the lives of two Buttershaw girls with Bob’s comfortable existence in a suburban newbuild, Rita, Sue and Bob Too blends bawdy laughs with astute social commentary.

Thirty years on, and newly restored by the BFI, the film is released on Blu-ray for the first time, with extras including a documentary and a booklet featuring Andrea Dunbar’s writing.

Next month actor George Costigan, who famously played Bob, will be at Bradford Literature Festival talking about his experiences making one of the most controversial films of the 1980s.

Other guests on the panel, hosted by Bradford-based writer Michael Stewart, are Rev Dr Claire MacDonald, reflecting on time spent with Dunbar at Keighley Women’s Aid, and writer Adelle Stripe, whose debut novel, Black Teeth and a Brilliant Smile, is inspired by Dunbar’s life and work.

They will examine how Dunbar captured the humour, humanity and hope of one of Bradford’s most deprived areas, without shying away from its problems.

Earlier this year George returned to Buttershaw estate with his co-stars in the film, Siobhan Finneran and Michelle Holmes, who both went on to forge successful careers on TV.

George’s own storytelling unfolds in his debut novel, The Single Soldier, set in France during the German occupation.

Described as a warm, emotive novel about love, secrets and redemption, it is set in war-torn rural France where.

George Costigan will be reflecting on Rita, Sue and Bob Too on Saturday, July 1, at 1pm, and talking about The Single Soldier on Thursday, July 6, at 7pm. Both events are at City Hall, Bradford.

Visit bradfordlitfest.co.uk for further information.