Top Boy

"A thrilling and raw four-part drama about young lives lived on the edge in east London - an honest and gripping rendition of inner-city drug and gang culture"

'Top Boy' gives a terrifying and captivating insight into the lives of some of Hackney's youngest drug dealers.  It portrays just how easily vulnerable inner-city youths can become involved in local gangs , and worryingly, the extents to which these gangs will go to in order to obtain money through drugs ('on the road' as they would say).

To an outsider, the drama appears at first to offer a shocking level of realism; a real sense of the scale of the problem.  However, according to East Londoner, Stan Becker, who recently reviewed the 4-part series for the Observer, the show does not take into account the constant and watchful eye of the police on gang culture in the capital; “Every day you get stopped and searched by feds [police]. You can’t even stand on a street corner round this estate".  

Despite this setback, 'Top Boy' is still undeniably an excellent and cutting-edge production on the part of Yann Demange, its director.  It features some truly stunning visuals of the expansive, damaged landscape of Hackney in which its main characters (a marginalised group of ill-fated occupants) live.  The screenplay too is intelligent, uncompromising and edgy, in fitting with its themes of gang warfare and murder and  heightening the sense of danger experienced by viewers.  

All in all, 'Top Boy' is not only an exciting and turbulent drama, it is also an insightful journey into the heart of London drugs crime, in particularly focussing on its corruption of the young and impressionable.  Well worth watching.

7.5/10

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/top-boy

Sugar Rush [Series 1]

'Drama series based on the novel by Julie Burchill. Meet 15-year-old Kim, who has just moved to Brighton and developed an earth-shattering, hormone-surging crush on her new best friend, Sugar'¹

"Wow, this is really something different..."

Like many teen dramas (see Malcolm in the Middle/Everybody hates Chris), the show is set in monologue with the main character, 'Kim', as narrator.  In the first series this setup really suits the dilemma Kim finds herself in; she is an angst-ridden teen struggling to copy with discovering her latent sexuality whilst growing up in the seaside town of Brighton.  Similarly the script is very inventive and really quite clever:- as Olivia Hallinan (who plays 'Kim' in the massive cult-following show) put it in a recent interview; "I got called back and read the full script and thought, 'Wow, this is really something different'...”

Given her key role in the series, Hallinan is a perfectly well-suited actor and a great ambassador for the original novel 'Sugar Rush', successfully bringing out the irony behind Kim's situation.  The other actors too, have outdone themselves - inspired perhaps, by the ingenious of Katie Baxendale and her co-script writers - delivering an entirely believable performance right through the first series to its dramatic end.

Sugar Rush is at times let down by poor continuity and amateur screenplay (largely down to its low-budget), but this is more than made up for by its witty comedy and for some fans, the classic soundtrack, so overall is still enjoyable in its own right.  Each episode seems fresh and different with exciting new plot ideas, yet there is a also a great sense of togetherness to the series as a whole; each instalment is a piece on a timeline within the first series.  Some of the story lines are very much feel-good and make us laugh out loud.  Some (perhaps unexpectedly) prove to be quite emotional.  

This is a definite must-watch.  Be open to the ideas it presents, particularly about family values and issues of sexuality. Look past the 'cult status' of this programme and appreciate it for what it is; a very well-written show featuring an equally great set of acting performances.

7/10

¹ http://www.channel4.com/programmes/sugar-rush

Starting my own blog...

As a budding journalist, I've decided to set up my own free-web internet blog, and to begin publishing my articles/reviews both online and in print where possible.  For the moment, I will be mostly posting positive critique (however if anything I watch strikes me as particularly awful, blog readers will be the first to hear about it).  So today - 15/10/11 - I add my first short TV review discussing 'Sugar Rush', a series based on a novel of the same title (written by Julie Burchill), which first aired on Channel 4 in late 2005.