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Entertainment

11th May 2020

How we made This Is England with Joe Gilgun

Wil Jones

this is england

Few modern dramas have had the impact This Is England had

When it was released in 2006 This Is England received universal acclaim, and went on to receive the the BAFTA for Best British Film in 2007. The film centres on the story of Shaun, a schoolboy who lives in the Midlands in the 1980s.

His father was killed during the Falklands War, and he is regularly antagonised and bullied at school. He finds himself befriended by a group of skinheads and then forced to choose between Woody, leader of the more apolitical side of the group, and Combo, a convicted racist.

We spoke to Joe Gilgun, who played Woody in the film and the subsequent three miniseries set at different times after the original, about how This Is England was made, how the film changed his life, and the way that it influenced his new Sky show, Brassic.