Few could have predicted that during the lockdowns, one of the biggest hits on BBC iPlayer would turn out to be old episodes of the school drama Waterloo Road. Perhaps people were missing school more than they thought they would. This interest appears to have had a knock-on effect; as well as bringing Waterloo Road itself back, here we are with another, more youth-focused school series, the likable Phoenix Rise.
This is more of a contemporary Grange Hill, with a sweet, Breakfast Club spirit of rebellion in the air. Phoenix Rise is the new name for a secondary school in Coventry that was previously known as Manor Grove (the kids joke that the name-change has nothing to do with the fact that the school is under special measures). It’s a new name for a new term, and an influx of new students, each of whom have been written off as “unteachable” in the past. “You all deserve a clean slate,” says idealistic head teacher Mr Stewart (Tyler Fayose), whose good intentions place him at odds with some of his teaching staff. “One man’s unteachable is this man’s work in progress,” he solemnly informs his new charges.
Yes, it’s a little cheesy, but it’s aimed at younger viewers. Its soundtrack is loud and modern, and it makes liberal use of messaging and phones, which pop up on the screen to chivvy the story along. The six kids deserving of the clean slate come from a mix of backgrounds, though mostly working class. As someone who bristles at the fact that British TV seems built on the assumption that anyone in any profession, from police officer to office worker, is easily able to afford a roomy Victorian four-bed in the suburbs with a huge kitchen island and big glass sliding doors leading on to the perfectly manicured garden, it is a relief to see that the children and teenagers here seem to live in very ordinary circumstances.
Each of the pupils is hiding a secret, which is the key to the reason they were considered to be “unteachable”, or outside mainstream education. These secrets reveal themselves slowly. Khaled is running away from a particularly nasty bully and has panic attacks; Billy is looking after his little sister Rihanna, in the absence of their long-distance lorry-driver dad; Summer’s mother is a local radio presenter, whose face adorns buses in Coventry, who warns Summer she is on her last chance, for reasons we do not yet know. In the classroom, Summer makes it clear that she is resistant to the appeals of the popular girls who are desperate to get her in their gang.
They find solace in each other and in the belief that Mr Stewart has placed in them. The idea of six very different kids – all outsiders, of a sort, whether self-declared or because of the world they find themselves in – finding common ground in their difference is a lovely one. Mr Stewart and his prefect Polly, a well-meaning sort – a bit like Derry Girls’ Jenny Joyce, only nice – attempt to welcome them into Phoenix Rise, even establishing a “Haven of Happiness” that these new starters can see as their safe space. “It looks like a rainbow threw up in here,” says Summer, unimpressed. It isn’t afraid to tease the system, though I think it’s fair to assume the Boiler Room Six, as they adorably end up naming themselves, might not be aiming to smash the system, so much as find their own place in it, in their own way.
For anyone who is far beyond their school years, this doesn’t do much to conjure up nostalgia for those days, though at the sight and sound of a beep test in a squeaky-floored gym, I could have sworn, that for a second, a great cloud of Impulse and Body Shop lotion had wafted in. But this isn’t for us. For younger viewers, its first two episodes tick off all the main school-drama cornerstones – bullying, periods, popularity and, briefly, a lucrative-sounding shoplifting racket. The kids are witty and quippy, and you can’t help but root for them. “They don’t like us cos we’re different – but maybe that’s our strength?” says one character, spelling it out for those at the back.
This is all heart, all sincerity and its “nobody left behind” ethos is sweetly affecting. Choosing to focus on outsiders who have been written off, but who might just be about to get their second chance, gives it a winning underdog mentality. Phoenix Rise isn’t reinventing the school series. It’s not doing a highly stylised Sex Education style comedy, or commenting on the system with Abbott Elementary-ish sitcom satire. But it does take us back to class with a refreshing, soapy confidence.
• Phoenix Rise is available on BBC iPlayer.
