Microsoft Agent Characters. The UK is dancing to the Madchester sound or alternatively holding lighters in the air to power ballads by female-fronted bands and Mrs. Thatcher has been ousted from 10 Downing Street by her own party – though the Poll Tax Riots in central London may have had something to do with that. Just outside Nottingham in some unidentified estate it’s spring. I’d like to describe the first episode of as “the warm embrace felt when returning home”, but it’s more like “the first hit after a long time of abstinence” as we are watching Shane Meadows’ very raw, yet beautifully observed, depiction of the lives of Lol (Vicky McClure), Woody (Joseph Gilgun), Shaun (Thomas Turgoose), Smell (Rosamund Hanson), Kelly (Chanel Cresswell), Gadget (Andrew Ellis), Lisa (Lyra Mae Thomas), Harvey (Michael Socha) and Milky (Andrew Shim). Over two years have passed since Lol attempted to take her own life, racked with the guilt of murdering her own father. As desolate as an event that was, it succeeds in peace between Woody and Milky while re-uniting the gang under a common cause. The girls are now employed as dinner ladies in a local school (though good to notice Lol still wears her Fred Perry shirt even at work) while the boys remain unemployed, moneyless yet still capable of reaching that much needed high which they first sampled back in ‘83.