We here at The Culture Vulture have already sung the praises of Shane Meadows’ This Is England ’86 when we attended the opening night which we followed up with some fulsome and positive words here.
Now you can enjoy it without the encumberance of advert breaks as it’s released to buy on DVD by 4DVD on Monday 11th October and is packed with fantastic extras including exclusive behind-the-scenes footage, cast interviews, outtakes, deleted scenes and an audio commentary from Shane Meadows. Don’t miss out on owning another landmark in UK television history.
Made by the Sheffield based Warp Films, the four-part sequel to Meadows’ BAFTA-winning film This Is England sees directing duties shared by Meadows and Tom Harper (who directed the woefully underrated The Scouting Book For Boys) and sees all the original cast returning to reprise their roles.
As Shaun (Thomas Turgoose, who lives up to the promise he showed in his debut) sits his last school exam, the realisation dawns that adulthood beckons. It’s mid-80s England and he’s going to have to find his own way in the world. Life has dealt a surprise hand to his friends too and no one is quite where they thought they would be… Woody, Lol, Smell, Gadget… they are back and looking for love, a laugh, a job and something that resembles a future.
Thanks to 4DVD we have three copies of This Is England ’86 to give away on DVD. All you need to do to win is tell us in the comments box:
What was your favourite year and why?
Rules
The competition closes on 1st November 2010.
The decision of The Culture Vulture is final.
The competition is open to those aged 18 and over.
Winners will be selected at random and notified by email.
1998. I was 13. Best year ever. I hadn’t started drinking or smoking yet, and was still making my own radio shows about the adventures of a mouse that was disguised as a rubber, yet knew loads of swear words and was learning how to be sexeh. Also went to Spain with school which was possibly best holiday have ever had, bought Hairy Scary Man, who is my idol, and discovered Marian Keyes! Good Times.
2009. It was a hard year that involved the end of lots of things, from personal relationships to work to the lives of several people dear to me. But from those ends came new beginnings and a strengthened resolve, leading to the most creative time of my life. I also finished my first year with the Open University, studying and completing 3 courses, which is the first time I’ve been able to “stick” higher education for longer than a few months. Better than my teens, for sure.
Retrospectively, 1997. At the time I certainly wasn’t happy. I was busy “finding myself” as that old cliché goes. I didn’t manage it of course, not for several years (and even then I probably didn’t notice for a few more years after that).
1997 is the year to which I can pin most of the defining musical moments of my life. My favourite album (Dig Me Out by Sleater-Kinney) was released, Foo Fighters released The Colour And The Shape, and the album I have bought the most copies of (8 Arms to Hold You by Veruca Salt) came out. Heck – even Blondie reformed, and Pixies released the collection Death to the Pixies. If you sort my music collection by year of release, 1997 comes up trumps. It’s both physically bigger than any other year, but also clusters a greater proportion of absolute favourites.
I might not have “done” anything that made a difference to my life, but I was certainly collecting a range of musical memories and experience by proxy that I still draw on today, and probably will for years to come.
1982. I was 6, and the Falklands was happening.
I kissed Kathryn Agar in a ginnel and got bitten by her dog halfway through, which put me off girls for a decade.
Bruce Weir came to my birthday party and brought me a book called Stories for 7 year olds, which made me feel ever so grown up, cos he was really cool and popular and that obviously showed he really liked me too.
On Guy Fawkes night, my sister dressed me up in an old blouse and a pair of her old royal blue knickerbockers, and wheeled me round the shopping precinct in a pram, in an attempt to cadge pennies for the living Guy.
I remember tracing my fingers over the embossed cover of Journeys to Glory strutting about to Musclebound.
Cross dressing, being pimped by relatives in exchange for incendiary devices, proto-crushes and the camp/macho extremes of New Romanticism: that was my 1982
Definitely 1988. I was 17. I went out every weekend either to illegal raves – driving round the M25 listening to pirate radio to get location, then arriving in a field with 5000 other people. They never had any toilets and had terrible laser light shows but they felt fresh and exciting and dangerous. I even did a bit of podium dancing *cringes*. Other times we went to London to see bands (I lived in Kent) including Sonic Youth, Pixies, Big Black, Mudhoney and The Swans. And don’t worry, in spite of all this partying, I did quite well in my A’Levels.
1996 – Euro 96. Held in England, Terry Venables as manager, Shearer on fire, Gazza’s tequila chair celebrations, Psycho banishing the demons of ‘that missed penalty’, stonking hot summer so you couldn’t sleep at night.
And we played well most of the time….. we had the home advantage despite that rubbish grey kit that was supposed to be a good match with jeans… the home advantage that got us through the penalty shoot out with Spain. We played like a team but then we got Germany and the dream was ended, yet again, in a penalty shoot out…. this time Gareth Southgate stole our dreams and broke our hearts.
But despite the heartache, it still remains my favourite year (well 3 weeks in June, to be precise).
1999 – end of millennium, first play commissioned, thyroid tumor removed and all clear given, in love with husband to be, living in Switzerland on border of Lake of Geneva, worked in same building at same time as Heiner Goebbels and Peter Brook, did not get a hangover after moderate drinking…
2005 had it all for me. I started by meeting my girlfriend on New Year’s Day. I traveled as far as Japan and Australia, while at home the hills of my native Sheffield were alive with the sound of the Arctic Monkeys. Star Wars came round full circle, allowing me to put those 80s Jedi aspirations to bed. I finally learned to ride a bike. I spent a summer playing bad cover versions, living in a boiling attic behind an ice cream van storage yard and lazing round Sheffield’s many green spaces. As the year ended, I moved away from the North (for a while) and started a load of new adventures. Not a bad year at all… 🙂