This Town (TV Series) Episode #1.1 (2024) User Reviews

Keep Right On

[xmasdaybaby1966 · 9/10 · 3 April 2024]

Who says nostalgia isn't what it used to be?

I would be about the same age as Dante and was brought up in Brum in the 70s (but moved away before this time) and it gave me a great feeling to go back even if it was to the days after Trevor Francis had left Birmingham City and they have never really found the same level since.

Birmingham is the U. K.'s second city but is rarely portrayed on TV (D. I. Ray was recently filmed and set there, Peaky Blinders was set but not filmed while the first series of Line Of Duty was filmed there as were several series of Dalziel And Pascoe).

You are more likely to see a Bollywood movie filmed in Brum than a UK series so this was a great relief.

A great start. 1xooint off for the dodgy accents.

Episode 1

[Prismark10 · 6/10 · 31 March 2024]

Steven Knight's tribute to the rise of Ska in Birmingham ends up being a story of an extended family.

Dante is a college student in Birmingham. An aspiring poet who is hopelessly in love with a girl who does not share the same feelings. The first scene sees him being attacked by the police as he just trying to walk home.

Dante is a sensitive lad and his father wants him to stay out of trouble.

His older brother Gregory was a bad lad. He was a bouncer in clubs operated by gangster Robbie Carmen. Gregory was respected as a hard man. Now he is in the army, stationed in Belfast. Half black, half Irish and hundred percent reckless while out on patrol.

Bardon is another sensitive student who lives in Coventry. Only his father is trying to force him to do his bit for Irish republicanism. Selling red diesel in the black market. He is Dante's cousin.

His grandmother Marie (Geraldine James) has a bad heart made worse because of what Bardon might be bullied into by his father.

The opener was all about establishing the characters. The music was more in the background with the likes of Desmond Dekker and Leonard Cohen. Knight wants the music to mean something hence why Cohen was referenced a lot. I did like the line, he was a 45 single being played on 33.

I have to question why the story is set in the early 1980s when ska and the Two Tone record label took of in the late 1970s. I think by the end of 1981, the classic line up of The Specials had broken up.

You can foresee an incident will have both families coming together and then the series should kick off. As Cohen might have once sung. First we take Birmingham, then we take on the world.