British film-maker Shane Meadows is developing his 2006 film This Is England into a four-part TV drama for the UK’s Channel 4. It marks the director’s TV debut.

We Were Faces returns to the characters four years on, in 1986, and sees Shaun, played by Thomas Turgoose, finishing his school exams and preparing to find his own way in the world. Details of the cast of due to be announced shortly and all key characters from the film are expected to return.

Meadows said: “When I finished This Is England I had a wealth of material and unused ideas that I felt very keen to take further – audiences seemed to really respond to the characters we created and out of my long standing relationship with Film4 and Channel 4 the idea for a TV serial developed.”

The drama will be written by Meadows and Jack Thorne, whose credits include The Scouting Book For Boys and UK TV show Skins, and it will be made by Sheffield-based Warp Films. Mark Herbert, Warp’s managing director, will be series producer and Derrin Schelesinger will produce. It will shoot next spring.

This Is England, which was also produced by Warp, earned in excess of $3m (£1.8m) in the UK and over $4m (£2.5m) at the international box office.

Warp has produced all of the Meadows’ films since 2003 and their latest project, mockumentary Le Donk and Scor-zay-zee starring Paddy Considine, premiered at the Edinburgh Film Festival earlier this summer.

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