Director: Mike Leigh
Screenplay: Mike Leigh (Devised by)
Starring: Roger Sloman, Alison Steadman, Anthony O’Donnell, Sheila Kelley
Country: UK
Running Time: 81 minutes
Year: 1976
BBFC Certificate: PG
Nuts in May (1976) is director Mike Leigh’s lesser-known cringe inducing masterpiece about a pair of twits camping in the English countryside. While the two central characters, played by Roger Sloman and Alison Steadman, are complete caricatures, there’s a timeless authentic quality to the comedy. It’s aged very well.
The BFI is releasing The Play for Today classic on bluray, newly restored by the BBC in 4K and presented in 1080p high definition. It comes with an archival director’s commentary, three sets of interviews, including a new one with Leigh, three historic documentary shorts on farming and a short 70s kids film about camping.
The picture is beautiful with a fuzzy grain capturing the verdant green meadows of the English countryside. It’s a clear crisp picture. While the film features a LPCM mono audio track, I felt I like was surrounded by nature, with the birds chirping and the wind whistling around me, along with the clock-ticking tension of middle-class misgivings.
The film is jam-packed with laughs and centres around married couple suitably named Keith and Candice Marie Pratt as they spend a getaway camping in Dorset. The pair have an eccentric buttoned-up hippie new wave sort of vibe and are determined to follow the “country-code,” and seek out organic food, unpasteurised milk and place themselves as moral arbiters whenever they see fit.
Keith is a domineering ego-centric over-the-top banjo playing loon and Candice Marie is a dippy airhead. Sloman and Steadman are such fun to watch in these larger-than-life roles. Steadman does this voice that seems very reminiscent of Rik from The Young Ones which came out six years later. The pair visit various locations that play out like comedy skits, sightseeing at Corfe Castle, a quarry, a dairy farm, and Stair Hole, making fools of themselves.
The tension ramps up when they come at odds with their nightmare camp neighbours. Anthony O’Donnell plays Ray, a shy PE teacher in training, who you can’t help feeling awfully sorry for when he comes in contention with Keith, initially disturbing the peace with his radio. And an obnoxious Brummie couple who arrive on a motorbike, wheeling around the campsite sometime later.
Between the Pratts, Candice could be perceived as a sort of victim in the relationship, while Keith grows increasingly hostile and irredeemable, but she’s constantly egging him on and bringing out the worst in him, so she isn’t much better.
I think the one weakness of the film is a jarring ending with a final shot that feels sort of rushed and unsatisfying, almost as if Leigh didn’t know how to end it after budget constraints meant that he couldn’t carry out his original vision which he speaks about in the extras.
Film:
Special Features
Archive commentary by Mike Leigh (2009): It’s a great light audio commentary, despite there being quite a few gaps, and he provides some great behind the scenes trinkets of information. He speaks about the background of the characters, who were created in a stage play, how the film came about, how his cast were pretty much let loose on a campsite to go wild with his famous method of improvisation and he defends shots he feels have been criticised.
Mike Leigh Remembers… Nuts in May (2026, 14 mins): the director looks back on one of his most influential television plays: Here, Leigh basically summarises much of what he says in the commentary. He speaks in depth about his original plan for the ending and we see shots of the original stage play. If you’re pressed for time, this is the best extra in the set and sums up all the background nicely.
Director and cast Q&A (2021, audio, 43 mins): Mike Leigh, Alison Steadman, Roger Sloman, Anthony O’Donnell, Sheila Kelley and Stephen Bill are reunited on stage at BFI Southbank: I enjoyed this. The improvisation techniques they used sound completely over-the-top, but it worked and they made a fantastic film. That being said, I feel the audience members squandered their chances to ask some more thought-provoking questions, and while it remains light and funny, the actors speak in little depth about their characters. Some of the audience members came across like complete Keith and Candices themselves. Rather amusingly, a woman given the chance to ask the final question remarks “Well, I may ask two then,” before being slightly admonished by the host, reminding her they were pressed for time.
BFI London Film Festival 2024 Screen Talk: Mike Leigh (2024, 48 mins): celebrating the 2024 release of his film Hard Truths, Leigh discusses his career with writer and journalist Amy Raphael: It’s a fairly dry interview. One for the ultra-fans to sink their teeth into, who will no doubt remember some of the more obscure elements in Leigh’s canon of work. I recommend watching this after you’ve rewatched his other more well known movies.
The Country Comes to Town (1933, 21 mins): a documentary made to help modernise the image of the farming and the British countryside: For these archival features, see my take below.
Spring Comes to England (1934, 16 mins): documentary on the journey produce makes from field to market – including Candice Marie’s favourite, mushrooms
Winter on the Farm (1941, 15 mins): a public information film on Upton Manor Farm in Dorset:
The Chiffy Kids: Pot Luck (1976, 19 mins): the Children’s Film Foundation favourites take a holiday under canvas
Play Safe: Camping and Fishing (1978, 2 mins): a safety awareness film showing the dangers lurking in the countryside
**FIRST PRESSING ONLY** Illustrated booklet with essays on Nuts in May by Mike Leigh, John Wyver and Dr Adam Scovell and writing on the archive films by Ellen Cheshire and Vic Pratt
The three archival farming documentaries, along with the old goofy kids film, kind of bring the set down. It proves that quantity doesn’t equal quality. There’s a tangential pastoral connection with farming in Nuts in May but that isn’t the focus. I felt like there were only so many farming clips I could take. Each of the films, while featuring some beautiful black and white photography, were all very similar and quite ponderous, to the point where my historical curiosity waned dramatically with further viewing. The Chiffy Kids film was just awful. I feel like the BFI just banged these films on the set as they simply had them lying around.
Special Features:
The BFI releases Nuts in May on bluray on Monday, 17 August.