This Is England
The Fred Perry shirts are back with the second TV series of This Is England.
This time round its Christmas 1988, and a lot’s changed since we last saw the gang.
Lol (Vicky McClure) and Woody (Joe Gilgun) have split up and both moved on in their own ways: she is a single mother bringing Milky’s (Andrew Shim) baby and Woody has a new girlfriend who is the complete opposite to Lol.
Meanwhile, Shaun (Thomas Turgoose) has gone to college and appears to be far more mature than he did when we first met him in the feature film in 2006. He’s still dating Smell (Rosamund Hanson) however things are about to change there too, as he has fallen for a girl in his drama class.
And then there’s the rest of the crew who haven’t changed a bit; they’re still rocking Dr. Martens and funky hair styles whilst bantering with each other constantly.
The first episode of the three-part series opened in true Shane Meadows style, with a montage of real images of from 1988, which was accompanied by the sound of The Smiths. Overall though, the episode didn’t impress. It was lacking interesting and genuinely funny content and focussed more on reintroducing the characters and showing the changes that have occurred since ’86, yet barely developed from that.
But fans of This Is England can expect things to get better, even if it means them getting darker. The first episode certainly gave the impression that it will go that way, as we learnt that Lol is depressed and keeps seeing her dead, abusive father; Woody isn’t happy when he finds out that Milky has returned after disappearing for several months; and Shaun has cheated on Smell.
This Is England ‘88 is definitely not your typical cheery Christmas programme, however it is an original drama and one which will have you hooked. It’s just a shame that it’s only three-episodes long, as it’s refreshing to watch a quality TV series and not just one-off Christmas specials which litter our box at this time of year.
Sophie Burluraux