Pariahs in paradise

TEN POUND POMS SUNDAYS, 9PM, BBC1 AND IPLAYER hhh

This is the kind of show the BBC does really well. It’s not especially sophisticated or witty, and it certainly doesn’t tax the imagination unduly. But it’s a solid idea, beautifully cast and very well executed – and at the end of the day, perfectly enjoyable to watch.

That said, there’s more than an element of soft power in action here. This is a show about impoverished, post-war families travelling halfway across the world by sea in search of a better life, enticed by the prospect of jobs, stability and happier times.

For just £10 they can give up their grimy existence for sun, sea and surf

Of good, ordinary people who, through no fault of their own, find themselves forced to flee their homes and who, instead of encountering compassion and sympathy, are treated as pariahs and secondclass citizens. What could the BBC possibly be trying to tell us?

Against the current backdrop of the government’s own immigration woes, it’s not very subtle, and it feels quite clunky in places; nevertheless it’s interesting to think of the shoe being on the other foot. And it’s also a reminder that Britain has not always been a place people would risk their lives to get to. In fact, my own family left this country in the 1970s, in search of something more than power cuts and strikes and three-day weeks.

It was at the behest of my mother that my parents made the leap, and here too it’s a woman who, fed up and determined to shoot for something better, sets the family on a fresh path. Faye Marsay plays Annie Roberts, married to Terry (Warren Brown) in 1950s Manchester, a war veteran whose experiences find him drinking away his wages along with what little prospects they and their two children have in life.

For just £10 they can give up their grimy existence in post-war England and travel to Australia, land of sea, sun and surf. That’s the dream, at any rate, and they buy it. Except of course when they get there, it’s not exactly as advertised. Their new home is a hut in an immigration camp, the locals are more than a little chippy – and everyone seems to delight in rubbing their noses in their humiliation.

The only people who seem to have a worse time than the Poms – including Kate, a nurse with a secret, played by Michelle Keegan – are the Aboriginal people, whose plight is seen up close in all its horror by Terry. As he takes up a job digging ditches, he is alternately targeted then befriended by local thug Dean (played with wonderfully psychotic menace by David Field), who introduces him to the less salubrious aspects of life Down Under.

Unlike other period shows such as Call The Midwife, the nostalgia here is far from rose-tinted. There are plenty of harsh realities at play. But the main problem is that in trying to overlay the story with so many contemporary sensibilities, it loses a degree of authenticity. In particular, the characters of Annie and Terry don’t really fit the period – they both feel too modern in their attitudes, emissaries from a more woke future. Or perhaps just the BBC’S diversity department.

Warren Brown, Faye Marsay and Michelle Keegan as Terry, Annie and Kate