British film maker Shane Meadows is set to make his television debut on Tuesday 7 September 2010 when his four-part drama This Is England ’86 airs on Channel Four. This is a follow-up to his 2006 cinema film This Is England and sees the return of Thomas Turgoose as Shaun, Stephen Graham as Combo and Vicky McClure as Lol.
This show is set in 1986, three years on from the film. England struggle in the World Cup in Mexico, Top Gun is the highest grossing film, over 3.4 million Brits are unemployed and Shaun is leaving school. On his own again after the gang was broken up by Combo’s acts of violence, Shaun celebrates his last day of school. His Mum (Jo Hartley) wants him to get a job and school bully Flip (Perry Fitzpatrick) wants him to help out with his love life.
Meanwhile, Woody (Joe Gilgun) and Lol are getting married and Meggy (Perry Benson) has a heart attack on the toilet.
The Actors in This Is England ’86
Thomas Turgoose won the British Independent Film Award for Most Promising Newcomer for his role in the film version of This Is England. Since then, the eighteen-year-old has starred as Dizzy in the TV show The Innocent Project and has had film roles in The Scouting Book for Boys, Eden Lake and Somers Town.
Stephen Graham played Tommy in the 2000 film Snatch, one of over twenty film roles and is due to play Scram in the 2011 film Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. He also featured in The Innocence Project as Andrew Lucas. Vicky McClure and Stephen Graham were both in the 2008 film Filth and Wisdom, directed by Madonna. Vicky McClure recently appeared as Stacy Nicholls in the BBC drama Five Daughters.
Joe Gilgun starred in Coronation Street in 1996 and 1997 as Jamie Armstrong but is better known for his ongoing role in another British soap opera Emmerdale as Eli Dingle. Perry Benson is well known on British television screens for roles in television shows such as Going Out, You Rang, M’Lord, Oh Doctor Beeching and Operation Good Guys. He also played the ice cream man in the 2010 Doctor Who episode “The Eleventh Hour”.
Shane Meadows And The Team Behind This Is England ’86
Writer Shane Meadows first started making short films when he was twenty years old in the Sneinton area of Nottingham and showed them at a local film festival organised by his friends. He wrote, produced, directed, edited and co-starred in the sixty-minute 1996 film Small Time, which won the Michael Powell award at the Edinburgh International Film Festival. Since then, he has gone from strength to strength. He won the Bafta Award for the original This Is England film. His co-writer on This Is England ’86 is Jack Thorne (The Scouting Book for Boys and Skins).
This Is England ’86 is co-directed by Shane Meadows and Tom Harper. The producers are Mark Herbert and Derrin Schlesinger. This Is England ’86 is a Warp Films production for Channel Four.
Steve Rogerson - Steve Rogerson is a UK-based writer specialising in television, technology, sports and beer.
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