A version of this article was originally published in The Dundee Courier on 19 September 2015.
This
Is England '90: Sunday,
Channel 4
Paul
Whitelaw
The
biggest shock of the TV week? An archive cameo from Scottish soap
Take The High Road. Its cardboard charms cropped up briefly in
This Is England '90, the third and presumably final TV sequel
to Shane Meadows' BAFTA-winning 2006 coming-of-age classic.
The
background presence of STV's stinging riposte to Dallas was
sweetly indicative of Meadows' offbeat attention to period detail.
As everyone surely knows by now, this is the continuing saga of a
group of working-class Midlands pals growing up in 1980s Britain.
The latest chapter catches up with Beaky, Choo-Choo, Fliegel and the
gang as they stumble into adulthood in the Madchester era.
True
to form, it began with a craftily assembled, scene-setting montage of
period news footage. The music used on the soundtrack this time was
There She Goes by The Las. Why, I ask you, what could possibly
be the connection between that song title, the poll tax riots,
escalating unemployment, homelessness, drug abuse, mad cow disease
and Thatcher's ignominious exit after eleven years in power? As an
amusing piece of blunt satire, it worked a treat.
We
then lurched into a charmingly lackadaisical episode that touched
upon the growing sense of nostalgia one feels in your early twenties
– sweetly symbolised here by the Proustian tang of school dinner
chips – and the awkward transition into 'settling down' when you've
barely grown up yourself.
Lol
and Woody (Vicky McClure and Joe Gilgun, whose droll comic timing is
second to none) are now living together and raising Lol's daughter.
Woody's bizarrely boring yet well-meaning parents are, without being
broad caricatures, beamed in from a universe far less grounded than
the one inhabited by their son.
Meadows'
ability to shift seamlessly from low-key character comedy to drama
and pathos in the space of a single scene was encapsulated by these
stand-out moments of domestic absurdity. While This Is England '86
was rightly criticised for its jarring leaps from knockabout
farce to harrowing scenes of sexual violence, thankfully he hasn't
repeated that clumsy error since.
Despite
being the original film's protagonist, young Shaun's role in the
overarching Woody/Lol narrative remains fairly inessential.
Nevertheless, as played by Thomas Turgoose, who these days resembles
a forlorn potato, Shaun is TV's most convincing teenager by far: the
hurt and confusion on his face speak volumes about the anxieties of
wading through that awkward age.
Rarely
do you come across such unaffected performances and
authentic-sounding, semi-improvised dialogue in British TV drama.
Meadows' work harks back to the days when the likes of Alan Clarke
and Ken Loach cropped up in the schedules to present powerful slices
of social-realism hewn from genuine warmth and compassion. He
actually makes us care about these characters as if they were –
gosh! - real human beings.
Granted,
as enjoyable though it was the episode did contain a few
self-conscious “Hey everyone! It's 1990!” howlers. And I wish
Meadows' would ditch his unnecessary penchant for slow-motion, sad
piano montages. He doesn't need to labour the point, we know how we're supposed to feel in those moments.
Still, at least the inevitable scene of the gang taking
drugs and grooving to The Stone Roses was dispensed with early. In
any case, the Madchester disco sub-plot was worth it for Woody's
throwaway reference to indie dance-floor classic “Idiot's Gold”.
Anyone
familiar with Meadows' work knows that it won't be long before these
light-hearted japes give way to tragedy. The monstrous ghost of Lol's
abusive father, Mick, still haunts this world; it's only a matter of
time before his pervasive evil causes another explosion. And what of
Combo (Stephen Graham), who's still in prison for making it look as
though he, not Lol, murdered Mick? His redemption isn't yet complete.
However
it unfolds, I'm cautiously confident that we're in for a satisfying
conclusion to one of the best British dramas of recent years. We'll
miss it when it's gone.
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