Sightlines · reception
How Meantime was received
1983 · Mike Leigh · Meantime on Sightlines
The arc
Made for Channel 4 and broadcast into living rooms in 1983 rather than released to cinemas, it was long a hard-to-see deep cut in Mike Leigh's run — until decades of word-of-mouth and a 2017 Criterion edition sealed its reappraisal as one of his very best.
What’s debated
The perennial fan debate: does this out-Leigh Leigh's 'proper' films — heads will tell you the TV-movie technicality is the only thing keeping it out of best-of-British-cinema lists.
Its footprint
Its afterlife is inseparable from watching baby-faced Tim Roth and a feral young Gary Oldman before anyone knew who they were — Oldman's skinhead Coxy clattering around inside a metal barrel is the endlessly screenshotted image.
Where it stands
A cult object turned canon climber: the Leigh deep cut cinephiles hand each other with a 'you must see this,' now a fixture of Thatcher-era-Britain watchlists.
Did you know? It was made for television — commissioned by the then-brand-new Channel 4 — and features very early screen roles for both Tim Roth and Gary Oldman, years before either became a star.