Meantime centres on a East End family the Pollacks - Mavis Frank and their sons Mark and Colin - and their experience of unemployment poverty and life in early 1980s Britain. When Colin comes under the influence of skinhead Coxy and when Mavis's better off sister Barbara offers Colin work family tensions erupt into conflict. Mike Leigh's first independent film for five years has a superb cast of rising stars including Gary Oldman Alfred Molina Tim Roth and Phil Daniels. First shown on television it is a memorable and closely observed account of life in Thatcher's Britain.