Circa '86

Whenever I think of the '80's, I automatically think of shoulder pads, spiral perms, Wham and The Goonies. This notion may be somewhat idyllic and incredibly stereotypical, but music and fashion is what seems to dominate my views of the era in which I was born. Women looked fabulous and men looked slightly gay. Just think of Wham in their white jeans and you get my drift... But genuinely, I have always pictured the '80's through rose tinted spectacles, having listened to my parents' stories about my mother's backcombed perm with the side shaved that my father used to draw on using felt tip pens; about my father getting heckled from the town scalliwags for dressing like Prince; and because of all the amazing 80's era hand-me-downs that now dominate my vintage wardrobe.

It came as something of a surprise then, when Shane Meadows brought the dark and dismal times of the '80's home in the spin-off series from the film of This Is England. And don't get me wrong, I'm not a complete idiot. I was already aware of the skinhead culture and the Thatcher reign, and of the difficult economic climate, but as I'm sure everyone who didn't live through the '80's does, I replaced that knowledge with attractive aspects which seemed to me to characterise the period. How wrong I was.

This Is England '86 was sometimes hilarious, often traumatic, and always amazing. Meadows knows exactly how people work - how to create emotions in his audience which makes you really identify with the characters. Having watched the last episode in the spin-off last night, I went to bed feeling physically sickened at what I'd just witnessed on tv. And as I sat watching Lol struggling with her emotions having bludgeoned her father to death, Combo came to the rescue and there was a bit of light shed in the dark tunnel of the tower block. Meadows' ability to bring conflicting feelings to highly-emotive scenes highlights his skills in conveying the real social atmosphere of the '80's; where the trends of the era are adorned by the cast, (and Doc's still remaining a firm favourite), but focuses instead upon the difficulty of life in the '80's, of the importance of loyalty and love between friends. This Is England '86 brings home the real '80's, documented cleverly by the World Cup matches, which serves to unite the cast in their allegiance for a country in economic climate.

But one of the most important things about the spin-off is that it was not all doom and gloom. Meadows' cleverly written script allows just a little excess of trauma, but that trauma is balanced out with the hilarity of other scenes. Shane Meadows knows how to do British drama like no-one else does.

And even though I've already watched them before, my LoveFilm order for A Room for Romeo Brass and Smalltime has been submitted. Well the man is a genius, and so I feel compelled to watch his films again and again. And again.