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It com­plete­ly changed the course of my life’ – Shane Mead­ows on Dead Man’s Shoes at 20

11 Oct 2024

Words by Simon Bland

Two men in coats standing in a grassy field against a cloudy sky.
Two men in coats standing in a grassy field against a cloudy sky.
Two decades ago, a grim North­ern revenge west­ern star­ring Pad­dy Con­si­dine as a man on the war path shocked audi­ences and made Shane Mead­ows one to watch out for. He reflects on the long lega­cy of Dead Man’s Shoes.

It was prob­a­bly the hap­pi­est shoot of my life,” says Shane Mead­ows of Dead Man’s Shoes, his hard-hit­ting revenge dra­ma that reminds us all why we shouldn’t mess with Pad­dy Con­si­dine. There was so lit­tle expec­ta­tion. We didn’t have trail­ers so we’d eat din­ner off our lap. Some­times, me and Pad­dy would sleep in the First Assis­tant Director’s car with the seats wound back. There was just some­thing beau­ti­ful about it,” he smiles. It taught me so much.”

The fact that Mead­ows can look back on the expe­ri­ence of mak­ing his fifth film with such wist­ful fond­ness is no small feat. Hav­ing land­ed on the scene with his 1996 debut fea­ture Small Time, Mead­ows swift­ly deliv­ered a dou­ble-punch of Twen­ty-Four Sev­en with Bob Hoskins a year lat­er, fol­lowed by A Room For Romeo Brass fea­tur­ing a scene-steal­ing Con­si­dine in 1999.

For his next project, things ramped up. Work­ing with big names like Rhys Ifans, Robert Caryle and Kathy Burke, 2002’s off-kil­ter rom-com Once Upon a Time in The Mid­lands saw Mead­ows’ play with his biggest bud­get to date – but when the film didn’t pan out quite as he’d planned, he feared his direct­ing career might have stalled just as quick­ly as it had started.

Work­ing with those actors was a real hon­our but I’d lost my way quite bad­ly,” he tells us, reflect­ing on the expe­ri­ence years lat­er. I knew how to make things that were well received but nev­er did any­thing at the box office, and when you lis­ten to oth­er people’s advice and that doesn’t work either… I was still in my 20s and think­ing about retir­ing,” admits Mead­ows. Before Dead Man’s Shoes, I was lit­er­al­ly on the verge of find­ing anoth­er way forward.”

Thank­ful­ly, a vis­it from Warp Films CEO Mark Her­bert changed things. He was after shorts for a new DVD com­pi­la­tion and when he saw Mead­ows’ trea­sure-trove of unfi­nanced short films made with his col­lege pal Con­si­dine, he became con­vinced the duo should do some­thing new. I didn’t quite answer in my pants and vest but I don’t think I was out of my pyja­mas,” laughs the film­mak­er, remem­ber­ing meet­ing Her­bert at an all-time low. He came to buy a few DVDs and walked out say­ing I think you should a make a fea­ture film like those shorts with Paddy.’”

Released in 2004, Dead Man’s Shoes sees Con­si­dine play Richard, an ex-army man who returns to his Der­byshire home­town to seek vengeance on the local thug drug deal­ers who tor­tured his men­tal­ly impaired broth­er, Antho­ny, played by Toby Kebell in his film debut. Opt­ing for less mon­ey but more cre­ative free­dom, Mead­ows was able to reignite his pas­sion for film­mak­ing while focus­ing on a raw sto­ry of small-town bul­ly­ing and aggres­sion that spoke direct­ly to both his and Considine’s shared per­son­al expe­ri­ences. It was a win­ning formula.

We were able to make the film as we went along in a way that the film busi­ness still isn’t set up to do,” says Mead­ows of his loose approach and ten­den­cy to drift off-script. We didn’t know who was going to get mur­dered first. We [told the cast] it might come down to the fact that you start­ed off well but now you’re not act­ing very well so we’re going to kill you,” he laughs. We were mak­ing the mould as we went along and it reignit­ed my pas­sion for film­mak­ing mas­sive­ly. The biggest edu­ca­tion was that less mon­ey some­how meant more con­trol – and most def­i­nite­ly helped to cre­ate a much more incred­i­ble film as a result.”

Mean­while, Con­si­dine had expe­ri­enced his own moment of growth. The pair first met on a Per­form­ing Arts course at Derbyshire’s Bur­ton Col­lege and kept cross­ing paths as they rou­tine­ly joined and ditched var­i­ous would-be degrees. How­ev­er, their part­ner­ship was cement­ed in 1999’s A Room For Romeo Brass where Con­si­dine played the vicious man-child Mor­rell, a guy whose humour hid his abil­i­ty to flip into switch­blade vio­lence at the drop of a hat.

A person wearing a black gas mask standing with outstretched arms against a hazy, overcast sky.

Mak­ing Romeo Brass was a les­son in what the pair could achieve togeth­er, with Mor­rell even­tu­al­ly lead­ing Con­si­dine to Paweł Pawlikowski’s 2002 dra­ma Last Resort and jobs in Amer­i­ca. As Mead­ows found him­self lost in work wob­ble, Considine’s career was on the up – and while the film­mak­er hap­pi­ly jokes that as he was try­ing to get a job at Tesco, Pad­dy was hav­ing his teeth whitened,” anoth­er col­lab­o­ra­tion was calling.

I’d always known how spe­cial an actor he was but until Romeo Brass, I nev­er knew frig­gin scary he could be,” says Mead­ows. Dead Man’s Shoes was like unfin­ished busi­ness. Where­as Mor­rell was most­ly fun­ny and then changed, we thought What if this fuck­ing guy has already changed.’ I think that was excit­ing for Pad­dy,” he sug­gests. On Romeo Brass, most of us were laugh­ing our heads up but over time, Pad­dy had dilut­ed things down so it was like a tap. You could turn it on and an unbe­liev­able per­for­mance would come out. When it came to cre­at­ing this aveng­ing fall­en angel, we got to places so much quick­er – and with the sub­ject mat­ter of Dead Man’s Shoes, we cer­tain­ly weren’t laugh­ing our heads off.”

Co-writ­ing with Mead­ows meant that Con­si­dine was just as involved in the minu­ti­ae of the film’s char­ac­ters, espe­cial­ly his own. It was next lev­el. Pad­dy and I had con­ver­sa­tions about the coat he want­ed to wear, the foods Richard want­ed to eat and the lit­tle fork he want­ed to eat it off on the end of a mul­ti-func­tion knife. He came up with the gas mask idea,” says Mead­ows, ref­er­enc­ing the film’s ter­ri­fy­ing cli­max where a masked Richard takes his vengeance. I’m pret­ty cer­tain he’d been past an old World War One shop, seen an old gas mask and thought Fuck­ing Hell, that with a boil­er suit on would look all kinds of scary.’”

Much like their bud­get, the pair had realised they could say more by doing less. It’s some­thing that’s per­fect­ly encap­su­lat­ed in Richard’s tense first meet­ing with head drug deal­er Son­ny (Gary Stretch) where the for­mer tells the lat­ter exact­ly where he stands.

Richard had devel­oped and when we got on set, what was writ­ten didn’t fit. He was almost try­ing to get the bet­ter of him ver­bal­ly and it felt too writ­ten’,” says Mead­ows of the qui­et pow­er of Considine’s now-icon­ic You’re fuck­ing there, mate’ scene – one that was orig­i­nal­ly set to be much big­ger. We end­ed up short­en­ing it down; it was almost like he couldn’t wait to get Son­ny to piss off by answer­ing his ques­tions before he’s even asked them. Not play­ing games with him throws Son­ny,” he adds. He’s not a very nice char­ac­ter but he’s switched on enough to know the wires aren’t con­nect­ed [with Richard] – and that seemed much more pow­er­ful. It feels almost like a West­ern. We nev­er had any idea it’d become so iconic.”

Twen­ty years lat­er, it’s some­thing Mead­ows hears about reg­u­lar­ly, adding yet anoth­er ele­ment to the sig­nif­i­cance and impor­tance that Dead Man’s Shoes holds with­in his career so far. The fact that I’d giv­en Pad­dy that first leap and he came back when I was at my low­est ebb and pulled me back into the game… I’ll nev­er for­get that,” he says earnestly.

Dead Man’s Shoes was the cul­mi­na­tion of all these things that hadn’t quite worked and hav­ing one final swing, say­ing this is me,’” con­tin­ues the film­mak­er. It was part­ly our lives – some of the bul­ly­ing and cul­ture we’d come across as kids but nev­er quite seen on screen. That’s why This is Eng­land was born,” reveals Mead­ows. Had Dead Man’s Shoes died a death, I don’t think I would’ve had the con­fi­dence to tell a film specif­i­cal­ly about me as a kid. It com­plete­ly changed the course of my life.”

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