One of the stories British cinema loves to tell is of working-class characters defeating the privations of Thatcherism using wit and creativity. In Brassed Off (1996), escape came in the form of communal music; in The Full Monty (1997), it was male striptease; and in Billy Elliot (2000), the romance of ballet.
Setting the template for all these was Restless Natives (1985), a cult Scottish favourite in which two Edinburgh dreamers turn highway robbers and, in the gentlest possible way, take to holding up coachloads of American tourists while disguised as a wolfman and clown.
