I liked the idea of Ackley Bridge (Channel 4) a lot. The initial trailers, shown late-ish at night, suggested a clever idea – the merging of two Yorkshire schools previously divided along ethnic lines – delivered with a scrappy charm and wit. Its actors, mostly the kind of soap exiles who ended up as the stars of the show, are all particularly likable. It was sold as Waterloo Road meets Shameless, which sounded like a decent formula. And, over the past six weeks, it has proved itself to be, well, fine. It is doing well enough in the ratings to get a second series next year, and it’s being given 12 episodes (split into two blocks of six) to spread its wings. It is particularly popular among younger viewers. But there is something tricky about an 8pm drama; it could have done with a little post-watershed freedom.
There was plenty of drama to wrap up in this series finale, and what better place to get everyone together than a college (or, as it’s misspelled on the banner, “collage”) open day. Mandy and Sadiq need more recruits in order to keep their big education experiment going. Unfortunately, now that Mandy’s husband and Sadiq’s family know they’ve been sleeping together, the open day does not run as planned. His daughter Alya uses her big speech to reveal that the school is a failure, everyone is as segregated as ever and, by the way, her dad’s been shagging the head. “That’s the only bit of integration going on here!” she adds, with a flourish. The governors are convened, but Mandy is not there, because she has realised the most important thing about teaching is looking out for the kids. Naturally, Sadiq throws her under the bus. Will she be back next year? It would be a weaker show without Jo Joyner, so let’s hope so.
Meanwhile, Jordan finds out he’s not the father of Candice’s baby, because his brother is. So, he steals Steve’s car and runs away with Chloe, who dances to Lorde’s Green Light awkwardly by a car, because she’s a teenage runaway and dancing awkwardly to pop music by a car is what teenagers do when grasping at freedom. She quickly comes back, though, when she realises Jordan is trying to pressure her into sex and maybe her mum’s not that bad after all.
And that’s kind of it, with a few minor romantic threads left dangling for next time. For a finale, it was oddly unexplosive, although it was a nice touch to have it ending as it began – two teenage girls in a skip, drinking cider, putting the world to rights and threatening to be sick.
That’s a glimpse of the show it could be, but isn’t yet. The Shameless comparisons have turned out to be unfortunate, because the brushstrokes Ackley Bridge chooses are far broader. Paul Abbott’s creation was clownish, but made true and often subtle points about family and class; this ends up settling for something more cartoonish. When it touches on the issues it is primed to tackle – race, education, class – it seems to balk a bit, opting instead for soapy romance. Which is fine, and watchable, but also seems like a waste of a great idea. Perhaps it will find its teeth next year.
As if the buildup to the penultimate bunch of Game of Thrones episodes wasn’t frenzied enough, Sky is starting its post-episode show Thronecast: War Room (Sky Atlantic) a week early, just to get everyone to a point of frothing overexcitement in time. Sue Perkins sits at the head of a Westeros-shaped table and her three special guests – Al Murray, Jonathan Ross and Lauren Laverne – discuss their theories about what’s going to happen next.
Those pre-emptively missing Perkins on Bake Off – look, it’s a thing – will find some solace here as she recaps previous seasons and corrals her guests into insights, to varying degrees of success. We find out that Ross now likes Cersei and thinks Arya is “a bit of a dick”, although a more useful discussion might be had on when the pronunciation of her name changed from “Aree-ya” to “Are-ya”, because I still haven’t come to terms with the shift. Murray thinks Jon Snow might be “a bit thick”, and Laverne responds to the idea that Jaime has vowed to kill his own brother with: “I know, it’s awkward, isn’t it?”
It’s a useful recap for those of us who haven’t rewatched each old episode several times over, and I imagine it will come into its own when they’ve got some new material to talk about. But this is essentially a podcast on telly, and it conjures up the same feeling as watching rolling news when a major celebrity death happens: there’s a lot of speculation and chatty filler because – as yet – we know nothing.
