Vintage Mike Leigh-with astaggering starturn

In the middle of another miserable London winter we could all do with a bit of a cheering up. What we all need is a good bit of Mike Leigh, right? Wrong?

- MARTIN ROBINSON

Well, right actually. The king of English naturalism - and in our country that means miserabilism-the director behind Naked and Secrets & Lies and Meantime, and other ventures into the grim minutiae of failure and disappointments, this man is also, lest we forget, a fine comic director.

And after the historical sojourns of his last two films - Peterloo and Mr Turner he has now returned to core territory of portraying "ordinary" lives in the manner of his very best work: hilarious, even as it scars you for life.

Hard Truths is a visceral drama centred around a staggering lead performance by Marianne Jean-Baptiste, whose Pansy is up there with the very best curmudgeons on screen.

Pansy is a woman with problems. She spends most of her time cleaning and cooking for her plumber husband Curtley (David Webber) and her jobless son Moses (Tuwaine Barrett). But she is no meek housewife. She is a dominating presence with a ferocious wit who scares the men around her into silence.

Terrified, too, are the people she encounters when she leaves the house.