Based on Bernard Hare's remarkable memoir, Urban Grimshaw and the Shed Crew, Candida Brady's masterful film adaptation is a striking and important picture with a timely urgency and palpable compassion for its subjects.

The story takes place in Leeds in the mid 90s where we first see young Urban (an auspicious breakthrough performance by Fraser Kelly) absconding from a care home and returning barefoot to the squalid streets of his upbringing. Urban is
just one of a number of children who, products of a community wracked by alcoholism and drug abuse, have more or less gone feral. Largely unsupervised the kids while away their time shoplifting, twocking cars and finding escape through drink, dope or glue-snifing. Urban's own mother, Greta, is a heroin addict struggling to pull out of her dawnward spiral and periodically engaged in furious clashes with social worker ‘nonces’ when her children are repeatedly taken into care.

Into this bleak, chaotic environment steps Chop (Richard Armilage) a disillusioned ex-social worker returning home in Leeds after a stint in London. Thoughtful and erudite yet lumbered with his own drink and drugs baggage, Chop stumbles haphazardly into a ramshackle kind of relationship with Greta and finds himself becoming a de facto father figure to the kids who congregate at the shed, particularly Urban, with whom he forges a touchingly close bond. Carrying his beaten down world weariness as hedoes. Chop makes for an unlikely saviour and seems caught off guard himself by his concern for the kids. He engages the Shed Crew, teaching them how to play chess and express themselves through poetry, gently
steering them towards pastimes other than substance abuse and petty crime. The road to redemption, however, is long, crooked and fraught with tragedy and hardship.

We've witnessed many an unflinching portrayal of life on the margins of society and the travails of those let down or forgotten by the system. Done poorly, the telling of such stories can veer into cliche and appear patronising to both audience and protagonists. That’s certainly not the case here. Urban and the shed Crew does a laudable job of investing its characters with a raw and affecting humanity and even a dignity of which they're too often deprived.

Brady’s snappy and pacey direction draws the audience into the world of Urban and his crew and keeps us transfixed throughout; this is lean, purposeful and propulsive storytelling. Never less than respectful and sympathetic, the film is free from the condescending or judgemental tone such subject matter can sometimes have and manages a good deal of levity among the grimness and squalor with more than its share of laugh out loud moments.

Richard Armitage plays Chop with an understated, laconic, seen-it-all-before air and a bone dry northern wit. Anna Friel is a revelation as Greta; a tempestuous force of nature, besieged by demons and oscillating between rage and tenderness, humour and despair. The young cast making up the Shed Crew are all utterly superb and likely represent the esteemed home grown film and television stars of tomorrow.

Having had its first showings at the recent Leeds International Film Festival, I hope Urban & the Shed Crew receives the extensive distribution it deserves when it goes on general release. I would urge everyone to go see it, particularly denizens of Leeds for whom seeing such a brilliant film made on our patch should be a source of local pride.