Knight’s 2-tone tinged comingof-age tale is something special
This Town (BBC One) opens with a line of poetry, delivered in a Brummie accent. “I love you baby. I can’t quite say it/but if I had a harp I’d bloody play it.” It sets the tone perfectly. Steven Knight’s new drama is a love letter: to 2 Tone and ska, to the Birmingham and Coventry of his youth, and to youth itself with all its possibilities, heartbreak and comedy.
The year is 1981, and would-be poet Dante (Levi Brown) accidentally wanders into a riot in Handsworth. In his duffle coat, he’s more Paddington Bear than street fighter. But this is inner-city Birmingham, and trouble is never far away. Over in Coventry, Bardon (Ben Rose) is being commandeered into helping his IRA father raise funds for the cause. And, in Belfast, Dante’s brother, Gregory (Jordan Bolger) is dodging bullets and listening to birdsong.
Dante and Gregory are black, and Bardon is white, but it turns out that they’re cousins. A funeral brings them together, and their love for music.
The BBC has billed this as “both a high-octane thriller and a family saga”, which is a bit misleading. Yes, there are moments of tension with the IRA’S activities, but it’s not a thriller. Go into it with those expectations and you’ll likely find it a bit slow. Knight has stuck to his guns and developed the story at his own pace. At a time when TV execs demand that every episode of a drama must be filled with attentiongrabbing scenes and cliffhangers, This Town is wilfully different.
This is a world of dilapidated council estates and street riots, and yet it’s not horribly bleak. Like his characters, Knight finds hope and lyrical beauty in the everyday. “I’m closer to heaven on floor 27 because I can see the M6,” is one of Dante’s lines of poetry, which sounds less Adrian Mole on screen than it appears on paper. Later, he tells someone: “A girl at my college said people like us don’t write poetry. I said Joan Armatrading songs are poetry and she’s from Wolverhampton, which is an even worse s---hole than here.”
The drama has its weaknesses. Knight, creator of Peaky Blinders, can’t help returning to his happy place, which is men being threatening in dark rooms. This Town could easily have done without a nasty nightclub boss who runs a drugs business and punishes underlings by making them choke on severed fingers.
You will care about the three central characters, but with the exception of Michelle Dockery as Brandon’s loving but chaotic mother – a role which utilises her talents as a singer – the women feel like after-thoughts. Knight is much better at men. Anita Singh
Don’t worry, Gareth Malone’s Easter Passion (BBC One) wasn’t a programme about the choirmaster’s penchant for Lindt chocolate bunnies. Rather, it found Malone staging Bach’s St John Passion at Cardiff ’s Hoddinott Hall with the help of untrained amateur singers.
TV loves a challenge and a deadline, yet the jeopardy often felt false. “I have just eight weeks to get them ready for the concert,” said Malone. Why, though? This was never made clear. It might have been the biggest task of the host’s career, as he kept reminding us, but it didn’t need to be. “I wish I had six months,” he sighed. To which a reasonable response was, “Well, you should have started earlier.”
Such contrivances aside, though, this was an engaging and enlightening journey. Malone seemed almost as nervous as his new recruits. However, as a lifelong fan of Johann Sebastian Bach, his evangelical enthusiasm was infectious.
The opening episode saw Malone encouraging people from all walks of life to apply, before hand-picking his final eight. What stood out was the human stories. Hopefuls courageously opened up about their own struggles which might allow them to connect to the 1724 oratorio. Bristolian civil servant Astrid spoke movingly about nearly dying from preeclampsia during childbirth. Psychotherapist Joy discussed being rejected by her birth mother and then, due to her sexuality, by the church.
As for the concert, Malone decided it should be in English, not German, in the hope this would bring Bach’s brilliance to a new audience. Alongside the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, the BBC Singers and three world-class soloists, the novices acquitted themselves magnificently.
Malone said that Bach’s masterpiece has endured because humanity hasn’t changed. Indeed, the experience proved transformative for those involved, paying testament to the healing power of music. Putting a long-form choral concert at the heart of the Easter schedules was to be applauded as loudly as that final ovation. Michael Hogan
This Town ★★★★
Gareth Malone’s Easter Passion ★★★