Somers Town, the Movie August 26, 2008
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Camden, Reviews , trackbackSomers Town is not grey. It has trees, and parks and with the warm honey and red brick of its low rise apartment blocks is as attractive as any densely built inner city area. The worst of the experimental social housing architecture of the sixties and seventies never made it here, and most estates are small. Some of us even tend plants in front of our buildings. Its streets are clean, and safer than surrounding wards. Filming in black and white makes it all look grimmer than it really is, and I suppose that was the idea.
Shane Meadows’ Eurostar-sponsored sequel to the award-winning ‘This is England’ is set a few years after the first film when Thomas Turgoose leaves for London, and ends up at St Pancras. Sleeping rough, he is attacked by some yobs who steal his bag and his money. A local woman buys him breakfast and gives him £10, before he hooks up with a young Polish lad, Marieck, and they set about hanging out in Somers Town.
The sponsorship is only obvious if you know it’s there. Marieck’s father is working on St Pancras, and at one point spouts a paean to the wonders of getting to Paris in two hours. The final scenes, in Paris (ie. after a trip on Eurostar), are shot in grainy colour.
Familiar landmarks abound. Marieck’s Dad drinks at the Cock on Charlton St, the boys fall in love with a French waitress at the Golden Tulip, and she lives in Levita House. They steal Tommo some clothes from the Chalton St laundrette and meet a bloke who, somewhat unlikely, rents deck chairs in Purchese St Open Space. Marieck lives in what seems to be a combination of Oakshott Court and a couple of other buildings.
This is an endearing if rather slight film. Tommo reluctantly wears checkered trousers and a dress, as the best clothes in the stolen laundry bag. Marieck’s father is struggling to give his son a better life, while the son spends his days taking photos and not having much to do. The two boys become good friends, but nothing really goes anywhere, and not much happens.
Other reviewers have commented that as the film is only seventy minutes it is a bit of a ripoff for cinema-goers. The Renoir in the Brunswick Centre have rectified this by showing it with a short, ‘ A Dog Altogether’, also by Shane Meadows. If you live here, or are a Shane Meadows fan, it’s worth seeing. Otherwise, perhaps one for a wet Sunday DVD.
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