THIS IS ENGLAND '86 is the TV miniseries follow-up to the hit Shane Meadows film, THIS IS ENGLAND - a film which I happened to love thanks to its grittiness and the way it brought back the 1980s and made it timely once more.
This miniseries is split into four episodes and the first couple are simply not very good. Although it's fun to catch up with the characters from the movie and find out what they've been up to in the intervening years (answer: not very much), there isn't really much of a plot and the episodes feel aimless. Social drama has been replaced by gross-out humour and it's a chore to sit through - I only kept watching due to the goodwill left over from the film.
The good news is that the last two episodes do pick up for some extremely explicit and hard-hitting scenes, and it's probably because Shane Meadows came back as director that these episodes have such an improved feel to them. Kudos to the cast members for handling such intense drama very well. Inevitably, the outstanding Stephen Graham steals every scene in which he appears.
This miniseries is split into four episodes and the first couple are simply not very good. Although it's fun to catch up with the characters from the movie and find out what they've been up to in the intervening years (answer: not very much), there isn't really much of a plot and the episodes feel aimless. Social drama has been replaced by gross-out humour and it's a chore to sit through - I only kept watching due to the goodwill left over from the film.
The good news is that the last two episodes do pick up for some extremely explicit and hard-hitting scenes, and it's probably because Shane Meadows came back as director that these episodes have such an improved feel to them. Kudos to the cast members for handling such intense drama very well. Inevitably, the outstanding Stephen Graham steals every scene in which he appears.