The Old Oak

Pub landlord TJ Ballantyne (Dave Turner) is divorced and depressed with a grownup son who doesn’t speak to him. The Old Oak is the name of his pub, the one community meeting place in a deprived north-eastern former mining town – and it is in dire need of refurbishment. His regulars are seething with rage, livid at the collapse in house prices and brooding over YouTube videos about immigrants. They are seething at neighbouring properties being bought for a song by real estate companies and rented out exploitatively, thus collapsing the value of the homes they’d hoped would effectively cushion their retirement, and strip-mining value from the community. Then a busload of terrified Syrians arrive and the tension gets worse.