This Is England

Since shooting his first ultra-low budget films with his mates, Shane Meadows has been dealing with witty and poignant stories of local characters that also manage somehow to be universally recognisable. His first big project, TwentyFourSeven, received a large national marketing campaign thanks to the confidence in the British film industry that followed the international successes of Trainspotting and The Full Monty. The trickier and less publicised A Room for Romeo Brass rewarded the loyal following that had developed but it is sad to think how much better it could have done with the publicity thrown at Once Upon a Time in The Midlands, which had become messy from the intervention of backers over-eager not to miss another opportunity. Dead Man's Shoes was a back-to-basics instant classic, created in close collaboration with the cast and crew, particularly Paddy Considine, who had played the self destructive Morell in Romeo Brass. Using a small cast of largely non-actors to create a dark revenge tale developed through constant improvisation, Meadows had proven (if proof were really needed) to himself and everyone else that he knew what he was doing, and that his style of filmmaking had no need of easy laughs or a concrete script.

This clarity of conviction is shown again in This Is England, his most accomplished film to date. Returning to his experiences of people he knew growing up, it revolves around Shaun (played by young revelation Thomas 'Thommo' Turgoose), an alienated young kid in the 80s, whose father died in the Falklands conflict. With no friends to turn to, he is spotted by Woody, the likeable leader of a bunch of skinheads, who take him under their wing. Much older than Shaun, they seem a bad influence, but it's only when these rebels without a cause are themselves introduced to Woody's former acquaintance Combo, fresh from prison, that we realise who we should really be worrying about. While having the humour and fresh performances of Romeo Brass, This Is England also goes to a more dangerous place, one that constantly threatens to enter the same violent territory as Dead Man's Shoes.

The agent of this, Combo, is portrayed by Stephen Graham in a performance that shocks with its rage. No stranger to big projects (Band of Brothers, Gangs of New York, Snatch), This Is England allowed him to tackle a challenging central role with the artistic freedom to develop it as he felt necessary. "In order to allow the film to move organically and be creative on the day, you have to know your character inside out," he reveals. "So we each had a huge biography and did a 'hot seat', where we sat in a chair, read our biography out and were then asked questions about moments of our life." For Stephen, the character of a vicious racist desperate to win over young minds initially put him in a difficult position. "You watch great films like Taxi Driver and you always hope to get the chance to play a great part like that. But with someone like Combo, the thing for me was the racism side. After the first workshop I phoned my dad and said, 'I think I've got to tell them that I'm mixed race.' My dad's half cast and my granddad was from Jamaica, so I was really nervous to tell Shane that there's actually colour in the family, just in case he then thought I wasn't right and wanted someone like Tim Roth or something."

On the contrary, Meadows saw it as something that would make the character even more interesting, and it became part of Combo's past as well, one of the many aspects of the film's world that developed through workshops and exists on-screen without being overtly mentioned. "I mean, it's all very subtext, but there's a scene where Milky (played by Andrew Shim, the young black actor who Meadows previously introduced in Romeo Brass) is talking about his family, and for Combo, it becomes less about wanting to destroy this person, and more about, 'Man, I actually missed out on all that kind of life.' That's what we put into it."

The original inspiration for the character was someone Shane Meadows had gotten involved with at a young age, who at one point took him to an underground National Front meeting, a scene that appears in the film. But by allowing the actors freedom to develop the characters themselves, Stephen was able to use his own knowledge. "I did know a Combo. Not as brutal, but when we were about eleven, there was this lad, who must have been about twenty, who'd come into the youth club and think that he owned it. He was practically a man, and we were only kids. He used to frighten the shit out of us. So I remembered how he used to make us feel and tried to carry that through with the young actors. I'd never hit them or anything, but I'd tell them stories when we were off camera - that were completely false - that would just keep that little edge of 'Don't get too comfortable'."

Having shown his skills to Shane, they are in talks to work again. "He thinks it would be really great to put me and Paddy (Considine) together in a film. He's mentioned a couple of ideas, but nothing specific yet. I think he should do a comedy, because he's great at comedy, but basically I'd just like to work with him again." For now, Stephen's working on Hollywood project Inkheart alongside Paul Bettany, Jim Broadbent, and Helen Mirren, fresh from her awards success with The Queen. So what did he make of her performance? "I haven't seen it! She hasn't asked me yet, so I haven't had to say, 'Er, yeah, I thought you were great.' I'll get around to it at some point." However, there was one prize The Queen didn't manage to get: Best British Independent Film at the BIFAs, which instead went to This Is England. "Yeah, I was talking to Mark (Herbert, producer) about this earlier, and I was saying they should put on the posters: 'This Is England - We Beat The Queen.' He probably won't go for it though. It's a bit too much, isn't it?"