NUTS IN MAY is early Mike Leigh, softened down somewhat for BBC TV, but still showing his keen ear for realistic dialogue, his eye for sharp characterizations and a general improvisatory nature – all the elements that keep his feature films such as HIGH HOPES (1988), SECRETS AND LIES (1996) and HAPPY-GO-LUCKY (2008) so fresh and unique in contemporary filmmaking. As always, Leigh does not work from a traditional screenplay. He and his actors spend lengthy time in rehearsal conceiving of and improvising the story and character development, which Leigh then goes off and structures. The cast is re-gathered and filming begins, with further improvisation encouraged and included. In NUTS IN MAY, an episode for a popular British comedy series of the 1970s, “Play for Today,” Leigh follows a young British couple named  Keith and Candace Marie, all too realistically limned by Roger Sloman and Alison Steadman, on a camping trip to Dorset. Roger is the archetypal know-it-all Englishman, an expert in absolutely everything and not at all shy about letting you know it. Candace Marie (both of her names are always used) is his wife and constant pupil, whether she’s interested in the lesson or not. Steadman has perfected the enunciation of Keith’s name to extend one syllable as long as humanly possible, and if I were on a camping trip with her, this would have been a horror film with a terrible murder in the woods. As it is, we alternately want to kill Keith and Candace Marie for the priggishness, busybody-ness and general Englishness they consistently exhibit, or keep them going to see what outrageous thing they’ll say next. Their camping idyll is ruined by the appearance of Anthony O’Donnell as Ray, a lonely refugee from a teacher training program, and later by some noisy drunks and an irate policeman. That’s pretty much the entire plot, but plot is the least of Leigh’s interests. It’s all about character with him, and he has two ripe and ridiculous examples with Keith and Candace Marie. Keith lectures and Candace Marie listens. Keith loses his temper and Candace Marie pouts. Candace Marie flirts with Ray but nothing comes of it. Of these moments are the stuff of life made, and Leigh revels in them. These early TV episodes don’t have the rich contradictions inherent in his later work, nor the deep characterizations that make a film like TOPSY TURVY (1999) about Gilbert and Sullivan so compelling. But it’s interesting to see the gestation of an artist and NUTS IN MAY is enjoyable and amusing in its own right. I still wouldn’t want to go camping with anyone depicted in this story.

Dir.: Mike Leigh, 1976. 84 mins. BBC TV. Part of the “Play for Today” TV series (1970). Produced by David Rose. Devised by Leigh. Cinematography by Michael Williams. Edited by Oliver White. Production design by David Crozier.  With Roger Sloman, Alison Steadman, Anthony O’Donnell, Sheila Kelley, Stephen Bill, Richenda Carey, Eric Allan, Matthew Guinness, Sally Watts, Richard Ireson.