| Once Upon a Time in the Midlands | |
| Director: | Shane Meadows |
| Producer: | Andrea Calderwood |
| Starring: | Robert Carlyle Rhys Ifans Kathy Burke Ricky Tomlinson Shirley Henderson Andrew Shim |
| Music: | John Lunn |
| Cinematography: | Brian Tufano |
| Editing: | Peter Beston Trevor Waite |
| Runtime: | 104 minutes |
| Country: | United Kingdom |
| Language: | English |
Once Upon a Time in the Midlands is a 2002 British romantic comedy film directed by Shane Meadows, and co-written with Paul Fraser. The film stars Robert Carlyle, Rhys Ifans, Kathy Burke, Ricky Tomlinson, Shirley Henderson and Andrew Shim. It is set in Nottingham, in the East Midlands region of England.
Set in Nottinghamshire, Dek (Rhys Ifans) proposes to his girlfriend Shirley (Shirley Henderson) on TV. When Jimmy (Robert Carlyle), "the great love of her life" and father of her daughter Marlene (Finn Atkins), sees this, he returns in an attempt to win back her heart. However, after deserting his friends in Scotland during an unsuccessful robbery of some clowns, his friends turn against him and come to the Midlands to try to track him down. In the end, Shirley refuses to go with Jimmy and professes her love for Dek; likewise, Marlene refuses to have anything to do with Jimmy, and accepts Dek as her father figure.
This was the third time that Carlyle had worked with Henderson (first in Hamish Macbeth and the second in Trainspotting), the second time he had worked with Ifans (the first in The 51st State), and the fourth time he had worked with Tomlinson (first in Riff-Raff, second in Cracker and third in The 51st State).