This Is England ’86

Shane Meadows directed a follow-up for British TV to This is England (2006), his raw, realistic portrait of a group of skinheads in Thatcher’s Britain, in which personal interests and radical political sentiments make for an explosive cocktail. In the follow-up for television, the extreme right-wing ideas have been dumped in favour of the search for work and the main character is no longer the young Shaun, but Lol: the first female lead role in a Meadows film. The tone has also changed. Although Meadows focuses on the dismal underbelly of British society in all his films, this is always offset by humour. Particularly in the second half, This Is England ’86 descends into the dark atmosphere typical of Meadows’ work. According to the filmmaker, this is necessary as the situation in Great Britain in 1986 was very reminiscent of 2011. A bitter recession and the feeling that the world is at a crossroads, bringing great uncertainty to the lives of young people.