Five-Minute Films

In 1975, the BBC hired Mike Leigh to create a series of Five-Minute Films. Leigh, a master of kitchen sink naturalism, explained his garrulous bursts of plot and character: ‘I thought it was a cracking idea, and I would have done forty of them or fifty ‘ so you’d see them all the time, and sometimes you might see a character you never saw again, sometimes you might see somebody popping up for a moment and then be a main character in another one, or there’d be a couple of ones that would run on to a narrative. It would be a whole microcosm of the world. There was debate about whether they should be shown at the same time or they should be dotted around the channel, like currants in the pudding, as Tony Garnett, the producer, called it.’ Although these were made in 1975, they were not broadcast until 1982. Mike Leigh had originally intended to make around 50 of these five-minute stories, but only these five pilots ended up getting made.