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| This Is England - putting the gang back together! |
It’s 1986; the year Maradona’s Hand of God ends England’s World Cup dreams in Mexico; the year Top Gun is the world’s highest grossing film; the year over 3.4 million Brits are unemployed and the year Shaun Fields (Thomas Turgoose) is leaving school.
Yes, characters from This Is England and creator Shane Meadows are back a few years after the events of the original film – with a follow on four-part series due to be screened this month on Channel 4. And having caught a preview of the first episode at the BFI Southbank in London, we’re pleased to say it looks absolutely brilliant!
 Lol - played by Vicky McClure |
 Shaun - played by Thomas Turgoose |
 Woody - played by Joe Gilgun |
With around 50% of the cast hailing from Nottingham’s very own conveyor belt of acting talent The Television Workshop, you don’t even have to have a passing interest in the aftermath of punk to watch this. But it helps…
Plot-wise, Shaun is on his own again after the gang was broken up by Combo’s (Stephen Graham) terrifying acts of violence. Then a chance encounter reunites him with Woody (Joe Gilgun), Lol (Vicky McClure), Smell (Rosamund Hanson) and the others in a hospital ward, straight after a wedding. To find out the identities of those who were hitched and stitched, you will have to watch the first episode.
Creator Shane Meadows said: “When I finished This Is England I had a wealth of material and unused ideas that I felt very keen to take further – audiences seemed to really respond to the characters we created. Not only did I want to take the story of the gang broader and deeper, I also saw in the experiences of the young in 1986 many resonances to now – recession, lack of jobs, sense of the world at a turning point. Whereas the film told part of the story, the TV serial will tell the rest.”
Channel 4 Head of Drama, Camilla Campbell, said: “Film4 has a longstanding relationship with Shane, and so I’m thrilled that a filmmaker of his calibre has decided to make his TV debut for Channel 4. I can’t wait to see the characters reunited in 1986 and watch their stories unfold over four hours of television. With all it has to say about the way we live now as well as the way we lived then, this is a darkly funny and utterly compelling British drama.”
This is England ’86 is co-written by Meadows and Jack Thorne (Skins and The Scouting Book For Boys), directed by Meadows and Tom Harper (Misfits) and produced by Warp Films.
You can look forward to interviews with Vicky McClure and Rosamund Hanson in the next issue of LeftLion Magazine - out at the end of September.
This is England 86 starts on Tuesday 7 September, Channel 4, 10pm.
This Is England website
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