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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Stephen Woolley

My friend David Leland’s films always cheered for the underdog

Director David Leland on the set of Virgin Territory in 2005.
Director David Leland on the set of Virgin Territory in 2005. Photograph: Keith Hamshere/Getty Images

David Leland was a master of understatement with a social conscience and wildly wicked sense of humour, arising like his friends the Pythons from our everyday humdrum British universe in the 60s and 70s.

More than 40 years ago I saw the astonishing Made in Britain. The film that made Tim Roth – who played a violent skinhead – a star, was written by Leland for the producer and director Alan Clarke. It was a a biting attack on rightwing Thatcherite policies and it is just as relevant to today’s brutal system.

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