Mike Leigh – The BBC Collection (TV)

This comprehensive collection of Mike Leigh’s work at the BBC includes his greatest hit, Abigail’s Party (with Alison Steadman inflicting Demis Roussos on her neighbours), and one of his greatest films, Nuts In May (in which Steadman’s Candice-Marie and Roger Sloman’s Keith endure a problematic camping holiday in Dorset).

Also included are Hard Labour, The Permissive Society, The Kiss Of Death, Who’s Who, Grown-Ups, Home Sweet Home and Four Days In July, all of which make the case that Leigh is a poet of loneliness in the vein of Beckett rather than a class warrior.

EXTRAS: 4* Director’s commentaries, booklet, interview documentary with Will Self.

ALASTAIR McKAY