Cinema - This is England

Director Shane Meadows trawled the streets of Grimsby looking for someone to play the part of his early self in his semi-autobiographical hit This is England. He eventually found unknown thirteen-year-old Thomas Turgoose in a games arcade, who agreed to audition. For a fiver. His ballsiness clinched it. Previously excluded from school and diagnosed with ADD, Turgoose turned out to be an inspired choice as feisty young Shaun Fields, the fatherless new boy whose four-inch flares make him the laughing stock of the school (this is 1983). But later Shaun’s (and the audience’s) expectations are confounded when a group of skinheads take him under their wing. Soon, shaven headed and dressed in a Ben Sherman shirt, braces, and boots, Shaun has a new identity and a surrogate family. These are the original ‘skins’ of Meadow’s youth, before they were co-opted by the National Front - a gang of good guys united by their love of dressing-up and ska music.
But then, when racist older skinhead Combo returns from jail one day, the easy camaraderie and innocence of the group is broken up. Drawing a line on the ground, Combo literally separates them - racists one way, the rest another. But seeing in the passionate Combo a substitute for the father he lost in the Falklands, Shaun tragically follows him and finds himself caught up in a cycle of violence and danger. This is an emotionally gruelling but extraordinarily touching insight into masculinity, violence and the roots of an often misunderstood subculture. ER