Four-Part Television Serial | Drama | UK | English | 3h56m
Dir: David Evans | Scr: Paul Smith | Ph: David Katznelson | Prod: Ewan Marshall | Mus: Errollyn Wallen & Malcolm Lindsay | Ed: Mark Davis | PD: Luana Hanson | AD: David Hindle | Snd: Alan O’Duffy | Cast: Douglas Hodge, Georgina Campbell, Jessica Hynes, Billy Matthews, Neil Stuke, Don Gilet, Joshua Osei, Zack Morris
This oft engrossing, but decidedly inconsistent, BBC serial depicts the build-up to (and aftermath of) a violent attack on a gang-troubled North London council estate from four disparate, but interlinked, perspectives, spending a night in the lives of an angry middle-aged salesman railing against littering youths, a teenaged Oxford-hopeful inadvertently putting her verboten boyfriend in harm’s way, a supermarket till-jockey-cum-aspiring comedian melting down at work; and a 13-year-old would-be gangbanger losing his innocence. The first and third parts, following the ups and downs of the two adult protagonists, prove absorbing viewing, but the other two, following the younger characters, feel somewhat less credible.
