This Is England '88 preview screening, BAFTA

Last Tuesday Frankie and I were lucky enough to snag a couple of tickets to a preview screening of the first episode of This Is England ’88 at Bafta HQ in Piccadilly.

I hadn’t thought about the possibility of another series since soon after ’86 ended, so to see this pop up on Bafta’s Facebook page (seriously, USE Facebook for stuff like this – you get cool stuff) heightened my excitement levels dangerously.

We were asked very nicely by the head of drama at Channel 4 and by Shane Meadows himself not to divulge any details of certain plot points, and I’m willing to stick to that. It’s just too good an opening episode for it to be spoiled at all.

But: as you will know if you’re an obsessive England watcher, last we saw Shaun, Woody, Lol and the gang things weren’t great (as per pretty much usual). So, surprisingly, this episode starts off mostly hilariously, with everyone waking up in their respective homes on December 23^rd, 1988, sometimes alone, sometimes not. And in the ‘sometimes not’ category, some new faces appear! In-TREEEEG-ing.

Like always, the best thing about watching something on a big screen is the collective reaction of the big audience. And as a cool (and surreal) bonus, the majority of the cast and some of the crew were there watching too, all pissing themselves at each other’s ridiculous costumes and hair (on the show, not in real life…). One of the most bizarre telly-viewings ever, but simultaneously awesome.

After the episode finished, to a lot of applause, there was a little Q&A with Shane Meadows (director/writer/creator) and Vicky McClure (Lol). As well as a few on-set stories and a glimpse into the surreal goings-on of his childhood that inspired Meadows to embark on the project, we also learnt a bit about the future of This is England.

This first episode of ’88 was nearly a stand-alone Christmas special - meant to portray the distinctly English Christmas that Meadows knew from childhood and recognises now. In his words: “an anti-climax, a bit nice, with some horrible shit mixed in”. Any familiar bells ringing? In part, that’s what makes the episode so good: the squirmy, awkward feeling that you’re being shown an uncomfortable collage of all the Christmases you’ve experienced over the years, with all the cringy Dad moments and strange around-the-table conversations.

We can also expect a This is England ’90 “in a year or two,” with maybe more after that, maybe not. A guy in the audience asked if Meadows would be interested in following in the footsteps of Mad Men’s creators, who claim they’d like to take Don Draper all the way to 2011 and his 84^th birthday. Meadows made it clear that he’d rather not “do an Only Fools and Horses” and reach his absolute peak, then churn out some not-as-good material afterwards. He described looking forward to exploring the explosion of rave culture and said he’d like to start ’90 with a shot of a pill dissolving on someone’s tongue. He did admit to not being able to see much after ’90, but he wasn’t making promises that his mind wouldn’t change.

If the awesome episode they treated us with is anything to go by, and the solid, compact format of three episodes a season carries on its successful way, I wouldn’t mind following This is England to its 84^th birthday, either.