Made in Britain (1982) (TV)

Director:

Alan Clarke

Writer:

David Leland (writer)

Release Date:

25 February 1982 (UK)

Genre:

Crime | Drama

Tagline:

Trevor is an angry young man.

Plot:

Trevor is a 16 year old, sometimes-violent skinhead with no regard for authority, and would rather spend...

Plot Keywords:

Social Worker | Skinhead | Social Realism | Country Name In Title | Adult Illiteracy

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Vass Anderson	...	Canteen Manager
Madelenine Athansi
Allister Bain	...	Hopkins
David Baldwin	...	Leroy
Kim Benson	...	Job Centre Girl #1
John Bleasdale	...	Policeman #1
Richard Bremmer	...	Policeman #2
Sean Chapman	...	Barry Giller
Catherine Clarke	...	Job Centre Girl #2
Frankie Cosgrove	...	Viv Parker
Sharon Courtney	...	House Parent
Noel Diacomo	...	Solicitor
Jim Dunk	...	Chef
Virginia Fiol
Christopher Fulford	...	P.C. Anson
Brian Hayes	...	Man on Stairs #1
Ava Hrela
Geoffrey Hutchings	...	Superintendent
Eric Kent
Hyacinth Malcolm
Jean Marlow	...	Job Centre Woman
Cathy Murphy
Garry Patrick		(as Gary Patrick)
Maurice Quick	...	Magistrate
Eric Richard	...	Harry Parker
Terry Richards	...	Errol
Tim Roth	...	Trevor the Skinhead
Jirí Stanislav	...	Man on Stairs #2
Bill Stewart	...	Peter Clive
Steve Sweeney	...	Job Centre Youth (as Stephen Sweeney)
Joan Ware

Directed by
Alan Clarke

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
David Leland		writer

Produced by
Patrick Cassavetti	....	associate producer
Margaret Matheson	....	producer

Original Music by
The Exploited

Cinematography by
Chris Menges

Film Editing by
Stephen Singleton

Production Design by
Jamie Leonard

Costume Design by
Monica Howe

Production Management
Guy Travers	....	production manager

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Richard Dobson	....	second assistant director

Art Department
Celia Barnett	....	assistant art director

Sound Department
Tony Bell	....	boom operator
Clive Gardener	....	assistant dubbing editor
Tony Jackson	....	sound mixer

Costume and Wardrobe Department
Daryl Bristow	....	wardrobe supervisor

Distributors

• Blue Underground (2004) (USA) (DVD)
• Central Independent Television (UK)

Also Known As:

Tales Out of School: Made in Britain (UK) (series title)

Runtime:

76 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Norway:15 | UK:18

Trivia:

Tim Roth researched his role by attending National Front meetings, much to his distaste.

Quotes:

[repeated line]
Trevor the Skinhead: Bollocks!

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Tim Roth: Made in Britain (2000)

The Eighties as I remember them

From the minute Made in Britain kicks off, with a 17-year-old Tim Roth with skinhead and a swastika tattoo between his eyebrows, slouching into the juvenile court to the strains of The Exploited, the energy never flags. Clarke's patented loping Steadicam follows Trevor (Roth) as he goes from assessment centre to job centre to sniffing glue with a fellow ne'er-do-well to stealing a car and throwing bricks through a Pakistani's front window, seemingly bent on pushing the system to its limits. Trevor doesn't give a f***, and in an amazing second act, set entirely in a basement room, he tells the authorities what he thinks of them: "I'm a star, mate. I'm in exactly the right place at the right time."

Trevor is hateful - he's racist, bullying, utterly selfish and dangerous, but he's also so bright and eloquent that the main feeling on watching the film is wonder at a society that could possible have produced people like this. David Leland, who wrote the film, speculated years later that Trevor would probably have gone on to work in the Stock Exchange in the late Eighties - he might well have been one of the well-heeled cronies of Gary Oldman's Bez in Clarke's 1988 football hooliganism film, The Firm. In the depressed and fearful Britain of 1982, Trevor's manic energy and contempt has no outlet - once Thatcherite policies had helped to boost the British economy, his disbelief in "society" would have been totally at home on the stock market. As Thatcher famously remarked, "There is no such thing as society", and Made in Britain shows how she caused such a state of affairs to come about.

It's also very funny, in a sick kind of way.