A trailer for a film on the notorious Peterloo massacre just dropped [National Student archive]

~~~THIS ARTICLE was originally written for THE NATIONAL STUDENT it has been archived on my personal blog anticipating the TERMINATION of that VENERABLE ESTABLISHMENT~~~


Peterloo is a new historical drama from Mike Leigh, director of Mr. Turner (2014), and the attention to detail in presenting the 19th century seems to have carried over, in a film with a clearly linked “look” with 2012’s Les Miserables.

[Image probably copyrighted, author too lazy to check.] 

The film comes from the production studios of Film4 and the BFI, both renowned for great British cinema, as well Mike Leigh’s own company, Thin Man Films.

The November falls within the 199th year since the Manchester Yeomanry charged a crowd listening to a parliamentary-reformist speaker in St. Peter’s Field, outside Manchester.

The Peterloo massacre, which killed 15 and injured 700, was the spark for the founding of the Manchester Guardian, the ancestor of today’s Guardian newspaper. It was also the inspiration for Shelley’s poem ‘The Mask of Anarchy’, which the trailer paraphrases – and which modern viewers may recognise from Jeremy Corbyn’s speech at Glastonbury last year.

Look forward to a visually-sumptuous delve into the melting pot of politics in the Manchester of the early 19th century, and the repressive state of affairs that then ensued, and certainly don’t expect a happy ending.

Peterloo will be released in cinemas on November 2nd, by Entertainment One.