Directed by Mike Leigh • 1976 • United Kingdom
Starring Alison Steadman, Roger Sloman, Anthony O’Donnell
A couple’s quest to get away from it all comes with some unforeseen hazards in Mike Leigh’s classic tale of a camping holiday gone wrong. Their car packed to the gills, the punctilious Keith (Roger Sloman) and the more spontaneous Candice Marie (Alison Steadman) arrive at a Dorset campground for ten nights of idyllic bliss. It starts off pretty perfect: they go sightseeing, eat vegetarian food, and search for raw milk. Then a fellow with a loud radio pitches his tent near theirs. Things get worse when a couple arrive on a motorcycle, have noisy sex in their tent, and start an illegal campfire. Will Keith and Candice Marie find a peaceful corner, or are they doomed to brawl with the noisy and unwashed?
Up Next in Mike Leigh at the BBC
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Abigail’s Party
Directed by Mike Leigh • 1977 • United Kingdom
Starring Alison Steadman, Tim Stern, Janine DuvitskiMike Leigh’s filmed version of his acclaimed stage play is a brilliantly biting comedy of manners that lays bare the bourgeois affectations and sexual frustrations of a young suburban couple. Abig...
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Hard Labour
Directed by Mike Leigh • 1973 • United Kingdom
Starring Liz Smith, Clifford Kershaw, Polly HemingwayMike Leigh’s first television drama is also one of his most autobiographical works, set in the same neighborhood where he grew up in Salford in Northern England. Mrs. Thornley (Liz Smith, in a po...
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The Kiss of Death
Directed by Mike Leigh • 1977 • United Kingdom
Starring David Threlfall, Kay Adshead, Angela CurranCited by Mike Leigh as one of his personal favorites among his own works, THE KISS OF DEATH is a mordantly funny portrait of Trevor (David Threlfall), a terminally shy mortician’s assistant who st...
