This is England '86

I loved This is England (2006). It has to be on my top films of all time. So of course I was intrigued to hear that Shane Meadows planned to further develop the story. He stated that "When I finished This Is England I had a wealth of material and unused ideas that I felt very keen to take further"¹

All sounds like a brilliant idea; continue to develop the fantastic characters we know and love from the film, build upon its successes and put the finishing touches to an already very accomplished narrative. But somehow this four part series left me feeling cold.

While some elements of the script and production were great, the overall series lacked a certain something that the film had, but it's not easy to pinpoint exactly what that was. I want to explore some of the pros and cons of This is England '86...

Reasons why This is England '86 just wasn't up to scratch

Shaun.

The film dealt with naive Shaun's desire to fit in and find a father figure, with Woody & Combo going head to head to take this role. As an audience we really began to care for the outcome of this little lad, urging him to make the right decision. The problem in '86 was that there simply wasn't enough of him; Shaun's story took a back seat - somehow an adolescent, more mature Shaun, who can't be influenced as much just didn't really work. There was so much more of his story to be told, particularly his relationship with Woody, but this was sadly neglected.

Humour

Much of the humour from the film came from the dialogue between Woody's gang; the comedy being drawn from the group dynamic and the way they interacted. But the comedy from '86 was a little too obvious. Gadget became a scapegoat to introduce comedy situations and set pieces to bulk out the script, rather than the humour being developed naturally.

Coincidences

It seems a little coincidental that Trudy would go from working in a shoe shop, to a marriage parlour. In an attempt to get all our favourite characters back she has just ended up being slotted in wherever Meadows needed her. Trudy was spot on in the film ("shall we just, mum?"). She wasn't in '86.

After being beaten up Shaun turns up at the hospital where Meggy is being treated for his heart attack. Suddenly he's back amongst the clan and everything is fine. And we just happen to be introduced to Lol's parents at that same time. Not good.

Flip

Portrayed in the first episode as the "antagonist" of the series, he paled in comparision to the villainous Combo of the film. He just seemed to pop up to once again provide a bit of humour, but his character didn't serve much overall purpose (Got to be said though, "F*ck off with your ginger chips" was still one of the best lines). Perhaps he was just a veil to cover up for the true antagonist of this series who would come into full form later.

However, his bullying of Shaun, which worked in the first episode, could have been further developed to show Shaun's fragility, and act as a catalyst for Shaun re-finding support from Woody and the gang.

The Past

Given everything that happened to the group, would they still be as closely knit as they were? Would they have forgiven Meggy & Banjo for their involvement with Combo? It seemed like the dynamic of the group and the relationships of the characters simply reverted back to how they were at the start of the film, rather than finding a new dynamic. Perhaps this can easily be explained away by the three years which have passed since the events of the film, but the scars seem to have healed far too quickly; literally for a character like Milky.

Reasons why it was brilliant

Music

As with the film, the use of music was spot on. A mixture of tunes of the era and Ludovico Einaudi's poignant piano score to really hit home the emotion made the soundtrack one of the best aspects of this series.

Cast

Once again the acting, the acting was superb. The characters jump to life in the same way they did in the film. They're real and true, which is down to fantastic dialogue and some brilliant improv acting. Vicky McClure (Lol) and Johnny Harris (Mick) shone above the rest and put in truly spectacular performances.

Combo

His appearance was what we were all waiting for, and Meadows timed it wonderfully. Would he go on a revenge rampage, if so who would he go after? Meadows cleverly made us wait to see what was next for this troubled and layered character, and Graham once again put in a fantastic performance.

The way he arrives at Shaun's suggests he is still violent but his redemption in the fourth episode took something away from his actions in the film. We knew from they were dictated by his emotions, and his covering up for Lol's attack was an emotional and touching way to prove to us just how much he loved her. But was it a bit obvious? A bit of a cop out perhaps? Did his good deed simply make us forget about what he did to Milky and detract from the climax of the film?

Fearlessness

Meadows has already shown us that he isn't afraid to shock, with the brutal scene with Combo and Milky. And he takes it one step further with the graphic rape scene in '86. The only criticism is that, Trev didn't get enough screen time to give it quite the same emotional impact as the film.

But the real shocking blow was achieved with the attack on Lol. The tension that was built through a wonderfully paced, realistic and truly intense argument between Lol and Mick culminated in a shocking and emotional outcome.

Twitter was awry with people complaining it was sick, disturbing and upsetting, but Channel 4 rightly defended the show and Meadows "unflinching and honest approach to filmmaking".² Meadows should be congratulated for the fearless way he deals with subject matter that other writers would shy away from.

Conclusion

It's impossible for me to draw a conclusion because of the wealth of mixed feelings this series gave me. It looks like the cons outweigh the pros, but while there may be more of the bad stuff, the good stuff was done excellently.

It seems to me that the overarching storyline was strong, but was padded out with some unnecessary filler and would have been better off in 2 or 3 parts. Better still it would have worked well as a standalone drama with completely different characters, rather than as a continuation of the This is England. After all, the ending of the film was so final that it didn't feel like it needed to be taken any further.

You can't deny that the certain elements were incredibly strong, but the glaring weakness in the story only acted to detract from what was a virtually faultless film.

You know what they say: sequals are seldom equal.