Time in: DVDs, CDs

Following on from the BFI’s recent celebration of director Mike Leigh come these new to Blu-ray films, originally released 22 years apart but recognisably his work, so distinctive is this unique film-maker’s approach to his art.

Released in 1971, Bleak Moments was Mike Leigh’s first feature film, a haunting study of social isolation that, although based on a stage play, employed what would become his trademark, encouraging actors, at the rehearsal stage, to develop the script organically, through improvisation. By and large it is a method Leigh has followed ever since.

Leigh is the first to admit the film has its flaws – the sound quality, much enhanced for this new Blu-ray release, was not great and it was perhaps over long – but this story