This Is England '90 Finale!

WARNING- This blog post may contain spoilers!

Name?: This Is England ’90  

Date & Time?: 4^th October, 2015, 9pm
Where?: Channel 4
Genre?: British Drama/ Social Realism
What is the purpose?: To entertain, and to create a sense of nostalgia for the audience members who experienced England in 1990.
Target Audience?: The Mainstream, consisting of teenagers and people in their 20's.

This Is England ’90 is the third series of the Shane Meadows 'This Is England' phenomena. The series was created after the success of the original film (set in 1983) surpassed all expectations, winning numerous awards including a BAFTA and BIFA. It became a favourite amongst reviewers and fans alike boosting the careers of the actors and especially its director Shane Meadows. By leaving a five year gap between the two most recent series' more and more anticipation built up around the series, and with more anticipation brought more expectation. All of the episodes where made available to watch on 4OD which allowed new people to become fans whilst still keeping the attention of their original dedicated fan base. After all of the build up the finale series- This Is England '90-did not disappoint, ending with an action-packed feature length episode.    

In my opinion, This Is England has been one of the most consistent programmes on TV, contently maintaining its outstanding acting and shocking story lines- and the finale was no different. One of the best things about Shane Meadows is his ability to draw everything that had happened in past series' together, providing the audience with some closure and understanding about each individual character, whilst still leaving many questions unanswered. For example, is Combo still alive? Combo is one of my favourite characters and I think this is mainly down to, Stephen Grahams incredible acting. In the first few series' he made the audience feel incredibly angry and apathetic towards him, after portraying extreme acts of racism and general violence towards others. One scene that was specifically poignant was near the ending of the film when Combo attacked Milky because of his race. It was extremely shocking and disgusting to think that somebody could do that to another person, especially over something like the colour of their skin. The film ends with the audience feeling quite confused and angry. It is un known whether Milk survived the attack, which is cleverly mirrored at the end of the '90's series. This time Combo and Milky have swapped roles, leaving Combo in danger with the audience still wondering whether he survived. Even though I thought that I would never be able to forgive him for what he had done previously, Grahams has managed to make me feel sympathetic and even worried for his character. This is something that I definitely didn't expect to feel, although the scenes in the youth club really capture Combos reformed, more loving nature. The editing is very typical of an indie production, with point of view camera angles, and a mix of historical news clips and actual clips shot by This Is England. The use of music and costume is what really gives it the 90's feel, using music that was released around that time such as Waterfall and Fools Gold by The Stone Roses.