Summer of British Film: Social realism

Let's keep this brief. Another week in the BBC Festival.

Am I the only person to dislike Billy Elliot? It was one of my 10 most overrated films:

Scenes were stolen from other films, it showed the miners' strike without saying anything useful about it, the locations in London and the North East were all over the place, half the songs came from the wrong era.

Worst of all it patronised the working class. When newspapers set out to find "real Billy Elliots", they found several and each had received tremendous support from his family.

I might have added that it has ludicrous sexual politics. In order to show he is not gay Billy has to have a best friend who is not only gay but looks and dresses like a girl.

The one I am looking forward to is The Whisperers. It does not sound a barrel of laughs, but it features one of my very favourite British film actors: Eric Portman and Leonard Rossiter is in it too.

There is a full listing of the Social Realism films on the BBC website.

The Whisperers is on Monday 13 August at 1 p.m. (BBC2).