Tony Earnshaw: Meadows' success proves there is a place for edgy TV drama

Warp Films, based in Sheffield, have been turning out off-kilter material for a while now. Things switched into a higher gear when Mark Herbert, formerly a highly respected location scout turned producer, hooked up with Shane Meadows to create Dead Man's Shoes.

Their collaboration continued with This is England, Meadows's autobiographical portrait of disaffected '80s' youth that focused on a 12-year-old lad's growing hero worship of a violent skinhead.

Earlier this week, Channel 4 broadcast Meadows's follow-up, part one of a mini-series entitled This is England '86 in which the young hero (Thomas Turgoose returning as Shaun) and his pals embark on their journey into the wider world.

Meadows himself has said that the series reflects "a wealth of material and unused ideas that I wanted to take further" and, indeed, it's to the credit of Warp that Meadows's vision has been given space to evolve further.

Hit movies are often transferred to the small screen as spin-off TV series. Yet who would have thought that This is England would have made that transition? What it proves is that there is an audience for edgy, intelligent drama with a twist.

What's more, it proves that Meadows – undeniably one of our most talented filmmakers – has that rare ability to switch effortlessly from big screen to small with the added advantage of giving his televisual projects the look of a movie.

Part of the Warp appeal is in its encouragement of the ambitions and aspirations of its stable of talent. Thus Chris Morris segued into filmmaking with Four Lions, a provocative slice of no-holds-barred comedy. Actor Paddy Considine, star of Dead Man's Shoes, has also turned director with Tyrannosaur which stars another actor-turned-director, the excellent Peter Mullan. Coincidentally, Mullan was also the star of Considine's wince-inducing Dog Altogether, the short film that has been expanded to become Tyrannosaur.

In contemplating Warp Films's slate I am reminded of the material that was coming out of Woodfall Films, the production company formed by Shipley-born Tony Richardson and playwright John Osborne, in the 1960s.

Woodfall was created in the late 1950s and eventually turned out more than 20 movies. They included a string of "kitchen sink" classics (and others) that included Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, The Entertainer, Tom Jones and The Charge of the Light Brigade.

Ken Loach has even attributed the success of Kes to Woodfall, which stumped up the money when no one else would. It's pointless to make lazy comparisons between Woodfall, the British social realist explosion of the '50s and '60s, and Richardson, with what Warp is doing 50 years later. But Warp Films via Mark Herbert, Chris Morris, Meadows, Considine and Co are ploughing a special furrow in the increasingly fallow lands of British filmmaking.

They are making relevant films (and television) for today's audiences, just like Woodfall did half a century ago.