Clio Barnard, 15 (94min)
The title refers to the Bradford street where the gifted writer Andrea Dunbar grew up, an area that bore prodigious fruit in her pithy, stark and often hilarious plays of the 1980s. Barnard’s docudrama about Dunbar takes a curious but effective approach, with actors lip-synching to recordings of the real-life characters involved in her all-too-short life. Natalie Gavin shines as the young Dunbar, while George Costigan, so memorable in Alan Clarke’s 1987 film adaptation of Dunbar’s deliciously profane Rita, Sue and Bob Too, appears as the melancholic Jimmy “the Wig”. Christine Bottomley and Manjinder Virk excel as the playwright’s daughters. Barnard is a director of note: her short film, Road Race, included here, is My Big Fat Gyspy Wedding as it should have been done.
(DVD/Blu-Ray; out Mon)