For the information of the poster who asked. Mischief Night. A British tradition on Halloween before the more recent invasion of the appallingly PC and American sickly sweet "Trick or Treat" aberration. In which no doors were knocked on except with the intention of running away before they were answered, garden gnomes moved gardens, washing (if anyone was daft enough to leave it out) hung from trees in the company of toilet rolls, fireworks were set off early in privet hedges or outside toilet pans, black bin liners were stuck over the outside of peoples windows with news sheets posted about the end of the world coming tomorrow morning and door handles at the front and back became linked with washing line. You couldn't buy off mischiefers with treats you either went to bed hoping for the best, sat listening behind your door with a rolled up newspaper ready to give chase or you were out perpetrating mischief. A time before weed had killed energy and creativity in British youth along with the ability to persevere in difficult circumstances that weren't brought on by your parent/s (people often had two in those days) needing to live an "Eastenders" life. The sort of Eastenders life in fact, fairly roughly but honestly portrayed in this depressing comedy. Not that it doesn't have many funny moments but overall the life being led by the white family in this film is close enough to reality for anyone who deals with todays young people to know that there isn't any escape from it. Rather like the far funnier but equally hopeless "Royal Family" it ridicules a reality which has been encouraged by a well-meaning nanny state with no apparent clue as to what constantly supporting people in their mistakes and inadequacy does to their self worth. Uplifting to some effect but that's the only part (as with Heavens Above starring Peter Sellers) that fails to ring true.
