On this episode of Bad Dads Film Review, the team reviews This Is England (2006), Shane Meadows’ raw, semi-autobiographical coming-of-age drama starring Thomas Turgoose, Stephen Graham, Vicky McClure, Joe Gilgun, Andrew Shim, Rosamund Hanson, and Jack O’Connell.

In this episode

• Recording outside the man cave in brutal heat, with England playing later and possible background birds
• Returning to Shane Meadows after the dads’ love for Dead Man’s Shoes
• Meadows writing from lived experience and Shaun Field as a loose version of the young Shane Meadows
• The film’s 1983 setting: Falklands aftermath, Thatcher-era mood, working-class Midlands anonymity, and immaculate period detail
• Shaun’s grief over his father’s death and the brutal school bullying around his clothes
• The infamous Mini joke, the playground fight, and Reegs’ detour into the real-world Mini passenger record
• Woody’s gang as surrogate family: underpass tea, derelict-house “hunting”, haircuts, boots, braces, and the gifted Ben Sherman
• Skinhead culture before the racist takeover: ska, soul, punk, clothes, belonging, and style
• Smell, the shed snog, New Romantic fashion, and the very awkward age-gap discussion
• Combo’s entrance from prison and the immediate tonal shift from funny coming-of-age story to something threatening
• Stephen Graham’s performance as Combo: vulnerable, pathetic, charismatic, manipulative, racist, and terrifying
• Combo gaslighting Woody, exploiting Shaun’s Falklands grief, and splitting the gang
• The National Front meeting: respectable presentation, simple blame politics, Frank Harper’s speaker, and Gadget’s “NASHNIL” spelling
• Shaun’s corruption under Combo: racist intimidation, the corner-shop robbery, and the stolen language of national pride
• Lol rejecting Combo and the emotional humiliation that turns outward into violence
• Milky and Combo bonding over music and roots before Combo’s jealousy erupts
• The brutal beating of Milky, Shaun being forced to watch, and Combo’s immediate collapse into remorse
• Shaun throwing the St George’s flag into the sea as a rejection of the racist version of England
• The continuing relevance of the film’s politics from 1983 to 2006 to now
• Strong recommendations for the follow-up series: This Is England ’86, ’88, and ’90

Bad Dads consensus

• Sidey: Strong recommend — sees it as at least a 9/10 and reads the final flag moment as Shaun rejecting the National Front’s corrupted version of England.
• Pete: Strong recommend — praises the film’s lived-in authenticity, performances, and the follow-up series; still holds Dead Man’s Shoes as a 10/10 comparison point.
• Reegs: Strongly positive — highlights the bleakness, the current relevance of the racist rhetoric, and Stephen Graham’s frighteningly layered work.
• Cris: Engaged with the period detail, humour, and discomfort of the film’s tonal shift, particularly once Combo arrives.

Final take

This Is England begins as a warm, funny, scruffy story about a lonely boy finding friends, then slowly reveals how easily grief and poverty can be weaponised by people offering simple enemies and ugly certainty. It is beautifully observed, brilliantly acted, deeply uncomfortable, and still horribly relevant.

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