Giant Films is bringing its latest feature, Think of England, to Manchester Film Festival on 22nd March, following its successful UK premiere at the Glasgow Film Festival earlier this month, with plans for a general release later in the year.
Inspired by an enduring wartime urban myth that the UK government commissioned pornographic films to boost troop morale during World War II, the film explores censorship, morality and power against the backdrop of wartime Britain.
Set in the summer of 1943 on the Orkney Islands, where the Normandy landings are fast approaching and troops on the front line are increasingly desperate, the film follows an eclectic group of characters tasked with a top-secret mission: to make porn intended to raise morale ahead of invasion.
Directed by BAFTA-nominated British writer-director Richard Hawkins (The Theory of Flight, Everything), Think of England explores moral boundaries, power, and performance against the backdrop of war, at a moment in history when the stakes could not be higher. The film interrogates censorship and hypocrisy, asking what happens when deeply held values collide with the demands of survival.
The film stars Ronni Ancona (Big Impression, EastEnders) as wardrobe and makeup artist Agnes Duprée, with leading lady Natalie Quarry (Rosalind Clifford in Call the Midwife) as Holly Spurring, and leading man Jack Bandeira (The Gold, Andor) as Corporal Evans, alongside John McCrea (Olivier award-winner for playing the original title role in ‘Everybody’s Talking About Jamie’) as Captain Anthony Clune. The cast also includes Ben Bela Böhm (Better Call Saul), Oscar Hoppe (All the Light We Cannot See) and Ollie Maddigan (The Olive Boy).
Quarry, as wartime actress Holly Spurring, delivers a bold performance that includes on-screen nudity, a brave evolution from her work as Rosalind Clifford in Call the Midwife. The film treats this exposure with gravity rather than spectacle, using it to interrogate power, coercion, and vulnerability in wartime Britain. Occupying a pivotal position within the film’s provocative wartime narrative, Natalie’s character sits at the centre of its exploration of sexual performance, power, and moral compromise.
Leading man Bandeira, meanwhile, delivers a performance marked by PTSD, and more nudity. His striking and sometimes harrowing turn is rooted in volatility and loss of control, with moments of stark physical exposure that sit squarely within the film’s darker moral terrain.
Think of England, produced by father-daughter duo Nick and Poppy O’Hagan for Giant Films, is also a controversial film about cinema itself, about how moving images have historically tested, challenged, and redrawn the boundaries of what audiences are willing to see. Set firmly within its time, the film shines a light on the institutional misogyny and homophobia of the era while allowing its unlikely characters to gesture toward a more tolerant future, reminding us to continually question the sensibilities and censorship of any age, including our own.
The upcoming Manchester Film Festival screening marks the next opportunity for audiences to see the film in a public cinema setting following its UK premiere in Glasgow.
