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Somers Town                                                                UK 2008
Starring : Thomas Turgoose, Piotr Jagiello.   Director : Shane Meadows
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REGULAR readers may recall my enthusing about Shane Meadows' delightful Somers Town after I caught it at the Berlin Film Festival back in February. Completed days before the prestigious German event began, this no-budget tale of teenage friendship was tucked away in the young-people's section - but was widely hailed as preferable to several pictures chosen for the main competition. Indeed, the festival's big prize-winner - Brazilian cop-drama Elite Squad - was released in the UK a fortnight ago, and Somers Town, named Best British Film at Edinburgh in June, is its superior in nearly every regard. For my money it's more satisfying and consistent than Meadows' big box-office breakthrough, autobiographical, BAFTA-winning skinhead saga This Is England - though his masterpiece remains the shattering Dead Man's Shoes (2004).
   Somers Town - written by Paul Fraser - is the first time Uttoxeter-born Meadows has made a film outside his native Midlands, mainly unfolding in the scruffily characterful north-London area which provides its title. Somers Town lies between Euston and King's Cross/St Pancras, the latter being the starting-point for the EuroStar rail-link whose owners commissioned Meadows to make a promotional short. He ended up delivering a 71-minute mini-feature about two lads who find themselves in the area: aspiring photographer Marek (Jagiello) lives in a poky flat with his gruff dad (Ireneusz Czop), a EuroStar labourer; Tomo (This Is England's Turgoose) has run away from a tough domestic situation 'up north.' Their wandering paths cross, and they soon become firm friends - and rivals for the affections of French waitress Maria (Elisa Lasowski)...
   It isn't a "spoiler" to say there's nothing of earth-shattering import in Somers Town: no tragedy, melodrama or state-of-the-nation diagnosis. This is, instead, one of those increasingly rare films which knows its limitations and works successfully within them, delivering a comic but occasionally poignant - and subtly topical - glimpse into ordinary lives that gradually builds surprising emotional impact and resonance. Featuring excellent performances (the two leads are superb), lyrical monochrome-DV cinematography (Natasha Braier) and a nicely-judged acoustic score (Gavin Clark), Somers Town may not be quite 2008's "best" British release - Joanna Hogg's Unrelated (September) and Terence Davies's Of Time and the City (October) also have strong claims - but it's emphatically a must-see, confirming that 35-year-old Meadows belongs in the very front rank of Europe's younger writer-directors.
                                 Neil Young                                
                                 12th August 2008

SOMERS TOWN : [8/10] : UK 2008 : Shane MEADOWS : 71m
seen
1. Babylon cinema (Berlin), 15th February 2008 - public show (Berlin Film Festival)
2. Tyneside Cinema (Newcastle), 13th August 2008 - press show
3. Tyneside Cinema (Newcastle), 25th August 2008 - public show (£6.85)

SOMERS TOWN. A poorly inhabited suburb of London, on the north-west side, and so called from the noble family of Somers, whose freehold property it is, or was, when it was named. "The Brill," or, as Dr. Stukeley has called it, Caesar's Camp, is a part of the present Somers Town.

                                   Peter Cunningham, Hand-Book of London, 1850



meanwhile...





SOMERS TOWN, situate to the south-east of the village just
noticed, has obtained both " local habitation and name" within
the last thirly years. But the site of this recent plantation
of dwellings has some claim on antiquarian notice. A part of
Somers-town is built on a spot termed the Brill, where were
to be seen, before the buildings took place, the remains of what
has been supposed a Roman camp. The earth works appear
to have been of some extent, and Dr. Stukeley (whose boldness
of conjecture is well known) in an account prefixed to
his Iter Boreale, but published since his death, very confidently
describes the arrangement of the camp, which he terms
Cassar's, and points out the peculiar station of each commander.
This is the romance of antiquarianism, and the pursuit loses
at once its utility and dignity by such an indulgence of imagination.
There is always danger in attributing a very remote
origin to dubious mnrks of antiquity in the neighbourhood of
a great and populous city, whose environs have experienced
the hostile visitation of divers formidable powers.





Under the heading of "A Miracle at Somers Town," Hone, in his "Every-day Book," tells the following laughable tale:—"Mr.—, a middleaged gentleman who had long been afflicted by various disorders, and especially by the gout, had so far recovered from a severe attack of the latter complaint, that he was enabled to stand, yet with so little advantage, that he could not walk more than fifty yards, and it took him nearly an hour to perform that distance. While thus enfeebled by suffering, and safely creeping in great difficulty, on a sunny day, along a footpath by the side of a field near Somers Town, he was alarmed by loud cries intermingled with the screams of many voices behind him. From his infirmity he could only turn very slowly round, and then, to his astonishment, he saw, within a yard of his coat-tail, the horns of a mad bullock—when, to the equal astonishment of its pursuers, this unhappy gentleman instantly leaped the fence, and, overcome by terror, continued to run with amazing celerity nearly the whole distance of the field, while the animal kept its own course along the road. The gentleman, who had thus miraculously recovered the use of his legs, retained his power of speed until he reached his own house, where he related the miraculous circumstance; nor did his quickly restored faculty of walking abate until it ceased with his life several years afterwards. This miraculous cure," adds Mr. Hone, "can be attested by his surviving relatives."

From: 'Somers Town and Euston Square', Old and New London: Volume 5 (1878), pp. 340-355. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=45241. Date accessed: 15 August 2008.