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Peterloo

Popped down to the Luna in Leederville this morning to catch Mike Leigh's latest film, Peterloo. This is a seemingly accurate retelling of the 1819 massacre that took place in St. Peter's Field in Manchester, where the constabulary and the army waded into a crowd of thousands with sabres and bayonets. The people were there to hear a famous orator, Henry Hunt, call for national suffrage and to put pressure on the government and the royals. 18 of the crowd were killed and hundreds of others wounded. The knock-on effects of this catastrophe on the reform movement appear negligible, though it did bring about the creation of The Guardian newspaper.

History 101 over. Onto the film itself. It's around 2 and a half hours long and it feels every minute of that. The build-up to the massacre involves an awful lot of piss and wind with politicians spewing interminable chunks all over the shop, in the (presumably) wanky vernacular of the day. Oh do tell, sir. On the other side of the class divide the Northern workers welcome back troops from the Napoleonic Wars to poverty and a music-free My Fair Lady setting. See thee, Father!

All these goings-on are performed with the broadest brush strokes I've seen in a Mike Leigh film. Some of the characters wouldn't look out of place in a British seaside panto. From the pompous, jaw-wobbling, spittle-flecked magistrates, to the salt-of-the-earth Northern povvos, to toffee-encrusted Southern law reformers, to vomit-gargling, areshole Prince Regents, all the stereotypes are here. Said Regent is actually played by Tim McInerrny, who's had some experience with royal toffs in Blackadder 2. There's even a young soldier who seems to be auditioning badly for Dunkirk. Neil Bell, who plays prominent reformer Samuel Bamford, gives the only real stand-out performance here, though Rory Kinnear does alright as Hunt.

It's such a surprise that Leigh has turned out this film in this way. The minimalism of many of his previous films is there but not much of the realism. Everything feels so overblown and cliched. Vincent Franklin, usually pretty good, plays one of the magistrates like Rowley Birkin QC from The Fast Show. It seems odd to me that the guy responsible for some of the best British films of the recent past could turn in something as uninspiring and misjudged as Peterloo.

See also:

Mike Leigh at his best with Naked (1993) and Secrets & Lies (1996). David Thewlis or Timothy Spall would have improved the film above, no end.

SPOILERS BE RIDDLEDETH HEREIN!!

Listen to "Peterloo" on Spreaker.

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