This Is England: Shane Meadows interview

Five films into his career, Shane Meadows explains why he's happiest working with low budgets.

Despite being born in Staffordshire, Shane Meadows has put Nottingham on the cinematic map. He's made five features and numerous shorts since emerging in the mid-90s with the street-smart short Smalltime and debut feature TwentyFourSeven (1997). All of his movies could have been titled Once Upon A Time In The Midlands, so it's ironic that the one which was - the 2002 "tinned spaghetti western" - was actually the least personal of his movies.

Midlands was to prove the turning point in Meadows' career as he's subsequently chosen to work on smaller budgets which led to less pressure to perform at the box office. For although his films depict working class life in a humorous and humane way - usually with an adolescent at the core of the drama - they've never crossed over into the mainstream.

Critics have been calling new drama This Is England his best work yet. Set in 1983, in the aftermath of the Falklands War and during the height of Thatcherism, the movie stars newcomer Thomas Turgoose as a bullied kid whose life is given meaning when he's befriended by a group of skinheads. Before you can say "Oi!" he's taken under the Crombie of Combo (Stephen Graham), a National Front-supporting extremist.

In the video Shane talks about the joys of working on a low budget feature, and how eBay saved him thousands during the making of This Is England.

This Is England is released in UK cinemas on Friday 27th April 2007.

Adrian Hennigan | Published 26 April 07