Recent debates surrounding the future of work and non-standard forms of employment have, especially in the United States, used the film industry as an exemplar and signifier of future industrial change. Much research conducted in the film industry implicitly or explicitly draws on the flexible specialisation framework to understand industrial organisation and labour market operation. It is the contention of this paper, however, that the dual labour market analysis associated with flexible specialisation explanations is too simplistic, failing to reflect the range of factors affecting labour market organisation and operation. The resulting static and atomised analysis is, as such, ill-equipped to conceptualise the complex patterns of organisation and movement evident in the highly uncertain context of film making. Furthermore, the operation and organisation of the labour market cannot be understood independently of the management of labour within the labour process. Production company management set the context and targets of work (in terms of work scheduling, pay, and conditions) and departmental heads retain method autonomy and control the recruitment and performance of `their' group members. However, this is the case within a context in which people need to continually resecure work and maintain positions within groups and contacts. Therefore, a seeming lack of control over tasks at the point of production is reinforced by the use of labour market mechanisms and influences their form.

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Currently the``creative industries'', especially the British film industry, are receiving much popular attention. The aim of this paper is to present a description and evaluation of employment in the film industry, and through doing so to challenge dominant populist and academic analyses of employment in this sector, as exemplified by the Labour government and a number of British and American academic commentators. These analyses are both premised on the apparent occurrence of an epoch breaking change in society, the balance of economic activity in society and the organisation of work. However, trends in employment practice over recent years, it would appear from the survey evidence and from other sources presented here, have not improved in the manner they could be expected to if such fundamental epochal change had occurred. Rather the data presented here point to much continuity in the employment relationship between capital and labour.

Lack of suitable in vitro culture conditions for primary acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) cells severely impairs their experimental accessibility and the testing of new drugs on cell material reflecting clonal heterogeneity in patients. We show that Nestin-positive human mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) support expansion of a range of biologically and clinically distinct patient-derived ALL samples. Adherent ALL cells showed an increased accumulation in the S phase of the cell cycle and diminished apoptosis when compared with cells in the suspension fraction. Moreover, surface expression of adhesion molecules CD34, CDH2 and CD10 increased several fold. Approximately 20% of the ALL cells were in G0 phase of the cell cycle, suggesting that MSCs may support quiescent ALL cells. Cellular barcoding demonstrated long-term preservation of clonal abundance. Expansion of ALL cells for >3 months compromised neither feeder dependence nor cancer initiating ability as judged by their engraftment potential in immunocompromised mice. Finally, we demonstrate the suitability of this co-culture approach for the investigation of drug combinations with luciferase-expressing primograft ALL cells. Taken together, we have developed a preclinical platform with patient-derived material that will facilitate the development of clinically effective combination therapies for ALL.

Employing the Eliasian concepts of figuration and networked agency, this article explores the responses to labour market uncertainty of freelancers working in the British film industry.Arguing that labour process theory has yet to adequately theorize a contextualized agent, Elias’ framework is proposed as a resolution, with the concept of figuration providing a more agential notion of structure while retaining power inequalities in relationships.Tensions are also identified in the framework, in particular with reference to Elias’ treatment of the individualization process, and these will require further exploration of the two frameworks to assess compatibility.