Sunday 11 October 2015

This Is England '90 (2015 Shane Meadows & co-scr)

Naturalistic (improvised) scenes draw you in, then something happens right in front of your eyes that you can't quite believe - episode one has it in a sequence at a nightclub - it's like alchemy.

Then in two, there's a scene so upsetting it's like looking at the sun - though the point of this is about friends who are looking after each other. The moment where we find Jo Gilgun sleeping on Andrew Shim - with the latter's hand on his head - melts your heart.

Great cast: Thomas Turgoose, Andrew Ellis, Vicky Mclure, Chanel Cresswell, Jo Hartley, Michael Socha, Danielle Watson, Stephen Graham.

Stuart Bentley is on camera, Matthew Gray editing, Jack Thorne is the co-writer.

Third episode - featuring painful, extended and clearly improvised dinner table confrontation, just makes you weep, and is unlike anything else on television. (Tom Turgoose really looks like he wishes he were elsewhere.) Andrew Ellis - who clearly is in love with Chanel Cresswell - is as endearing as anything.

And then that ending. One of the most powerful things about it is the way characters suddenly explode. But it's also the combination of sweet and sour. Room for one more?

No comments:

Post a Comment