This is England '86: Episode 1

Like hearing that an ex-flame has just started dating a close friend, This is England '86 fills you both with trepidation and incurable curiosity. The continuation of the original Shane Meadows masterpiece This Is England as a four-episode television series is a brave attempt to better the bad taste in the mouth which was Channel 4's Lock, Stock series, that managed to savage the memory of the film so soon after its surprise success.

Opening with what must presumably be a deleted scene (or even alternative ending) from the 2006 film, casual racist Combo (Stephen Graham) accepts that he (like everyone else) has let down young Shaun (Thomas Turgoose) following the violent confrontation that closed the previous installment of these characters' lives. Yet moving forward four years, nothing seems any more optimistic for any of the close-knit group which were torn apart by the unfortunate timing of their coming of age at the start of Thatcher's Britain.

The style of the TV show is more broadly comic than the film: after finishing his exams, Shaun waits at a bus-stop and watches the wedding party of Woody and Lol heading to the registry office whilst he is harassed by local biker Flip, who bullies him to tell Gemma "Sweet Tits" Hitchins that she is a dog over an afternoon cocktail of Soda Stream so that Flip can defend her honour. The emotional twists that the first episode takes are therefore slightly less well earned than their predecessor's, but the association one has with the characters is more sharply felt than the average opening salvo of a new show.

Vicky McClure (Lol) seems to be the lead character in this new venture and her natural delivery is as sharp as her Jedward-style haircut, but the pleasure lies in seeing all of the gang reunited and when the two worlds collide again in a hospital there is an undoubted frisson.

Infinitely better already than the aforementioned Lock, Stock abomination, This is England '86 has every chance of becoming a fascinating This is England II, though will serve as a minor footnote in Meadow's résumé (this first episode is directed by Tom Harper).



Airs at 10pm on Tuesday 7th September 2010 on Channel 4.

> Buy the DVD on Amazon.

Reviewed by Simon Cole.