While I still miss the Mike Leigh of such character-based televison plays as Nuts in May and Abigail's Party, he still has time for small character dramatics in this otherwise larger scale true-story account of the 'Massacre at Peterloo.' It's a shocking moment in history, one that I knew little about, and while it is based firmly in the past, there are still echoes of the way upper class governments demoralise and mistreat the working classes of today's society. Shocking and sad, it's a long, sometimes adurous film, but one worth sitting through.

The language is elaborate and the pace of the film slow, but the historical interest of the film is very high.

Slow and with elaborate language, but of great historical value.