He made his name with violence-peppered working-class realism, but now the This is England creator is doing historical drama. We step inside his take on a brutal 18th-century gang
You might think it would take a lot to make Shane Meadows wince, but that’s what is happening right now. “Some of the violence is up there with [Meadows’ 2004 film] Dead Man’s Shoes,” says the writer and director, referring to The Gallows Pole, Benjamin Myers’ novel about an 18th-century West Yorkshire counterfeit gang that he is now bringing to the small screen. “Some of it,” he adds, “actually turned my stomach.”
What can compete with the infamous scene in the film-maker’s brutal revenge thriller where three men are fed a bucket (well, kettle) load of LSD and then – via gun, knife and a nose punched into a brain – executed, one by one?
The Gallows Pole launches at 9pm on Wednesday 31 May on BBC Two, with all episodes available immediately on iPlayer
