“I wanted with this film almost to leave my directing hat at the doorstep. I realised quite early on that it was going to be quite an observant film. It almost feels like a documentary at times, which I really like, because there were a few scenes which took a long time to shoot but the majority of things went down in one or two takes.”
A “bad advert for cinema” or the “freshest, most imaginative, maverick work”? Director Shane Meadows talks Somers Town:
Why did you choose Somers Town?
It’s an area right next to the St Pancras Station and Euston Station. Because that’s such a transient area you can almost walk past it. If you name areas, even to people half a mile away, some people haven’t even heard of it. So you’ve got this area between two stations – one of which has just become an international station. And the population of Somers Town and the area around King’s Cross has changed dramatically. It used to be some of the oldest housing, with old gas lamps still up and gas towers there.
Ever since I’ve started making films I’ve driven into this area on the train and seen the old gas towers and flats and never realised that that existed as a town; was a place in itself. We all realised that if you’ve got all those flats and a station next to it with a Paris to London link, the people who stay there won’t be able to afford to stay there. In pockets of Britain you have places where people never move and families are there for generations and Somers Town has been one of those and is probably going to change quite soon. Like many places in the world shopping malls and all these things come and change those places. Somers Town had managed to protect itself because it was between these two stations but now the stations are probably going to be the downfall of what was there. So it was obviously the idea of documenting that area and also, the story, they do have a lot of Polish workers so that was why it was picked.
Further: An interview with Meadows in the Times / Cinema sells its soul / Darran Anderson on This Is England
