Programmed January 2023

Mike Leigh at the BBC

Featuring a new introduction by the filmmaker In the seventeen years between his first two theatrical features (1971’s Bleak Moments and 1988’s High Hopes ), Mike Leigh, the great humanist of British cinema, sharpened his distinctive voice and famously improvisatory process at the BBC, where he directed a string of striking, bittersweet slice-of-life dramas built around sharply etched characters. Infused with Leigh’s trademark humor, empathy, and incisive class and social critiques, these oft-neglected early works are blueprints to Leigh’s illustrious later career and brilliant showcases for many of the legendary actors who would become his most important collaborators, including Alison Steadman, Lesley Manville, Brenda Blethyn, and Timothy Spall.

Still watchable end to end