I discovered this show quite by accident: my sister was watching the second episode, I wandered in and watched the last ten minutes with her. The next morning I got caught up and we watched the rest of the six-episode miniseries as a family. This order of events is actually a little peculiar… more often than not, series that I review on here that I’ve watched with my family I recommended to them, rather than the other way around. But hey ho. What matters is that I watched it, and found it lovely. So here we go. Review.
Spoilers ahead for season 1 of Channel 4’s Ackley Bridge.
Ackley Bridge follows the story of a newly created secondary school academy, forged from the merging of two separate schools; one from a working class majority white area, and one from a majority Asian catchment. The skirmishes that follow are a fascinating – if predictable at times – look at the racism that goes on in British schools – and, as an extension, in our society as a whole. This microcosmic examination of one of modern Britain’s biggest social issues is pretty much this show’s mission statement, as well as examining the uplifting good and crushing bad that comes with a manufactured integration such as this.
There are two contrasting results among the students of this integration, the first – unarguably more negative – being in the character of Jordan Wilson (Sam Bottomley). Within the first ten minutes of episode one I was pretty sure I was going to hate him. He was loud, irritating and offensive to everyone. Hanging racist slogans around the school and dressing up in a hijab for the sole purpose of pissing off as many people as he possibly could… myself included. Jordan is obnoxious and repressed, but that’s just the thing: he’s supposed to be. A good person does not an interesting character make. Yes, he may be a total d-bag half the time, but he’s also one of the best – and most important characters – that Ackley Bridge has to offer. His speech over the school tannoy system at the end of the first episode is depressing and truly takes no prisoners, sticking a knife in the heart of a starry eyed patriot and speaking to one of the greatest societal divides in our country right now: “If you’re white you’re a racist; if you’re Asian you don’t belong,” he intones, exposing the harsh truth of life as a working class young person in today’s Britain: “it’s all crackheads and food-banks”. It’s the tragic truth of not just the UK, but of our broken, hateful world. Jordan comes from an incredibly deprived background, his dad is a total shithead; these are the closed-minded values he’s been brought up on. Like so many fears, xenophobia is simply based on ignorance. By the end of the season, Jordan has begun to open up, and is a better and more mature person for it.
Not TOTALLY mature though, as demonstrated by his theft of PE teacher Steve Bell’s (Paul Nicholls) car in the finale. He’s had shit thrown at him to he point where he’s willing to betray the trust of the only adult in his life who never gave up on him for the chance to just get away from it all. He’s a total mess, and that’s okay. A lot of people can relate to that. It’s just a shame that one of the main contributing factors to that messiness was, as far as I’m concerned, one of the biggest botch-jobs of the season. In the second episode it comes out that Jordan may or may not be the father of a child. This revelation pushes his development forward at an alarming rate. Unexpected parenthood arcs are always a real challenge to pull off, especially in your first season. And then, just three episodes later – a price of such a short season I suppose – he finds out that the baby ISN’T his… but wait, surprise! It’s his brother’s! Because plot twist. I mean, sure I’ll go with it, especially since it allowed for some great scenes between Jordan and Mr Bell, one of the many teacher-student relationships that make Ackley Bridge so touching. I understand that this is an important story to tell, but it all just felt rushed, for me anyway.
Speaking of Mr Bell, he’s lovely, and less of a stereotypical tough-guy PE teacher than his alpha male colleague who purposely outs biology teacher Lila Sharif (Anneika Rose) just because she broke his poor ickle heart by accidentally being gay. Yeah, sorry mate, no sympathy from me after that colossal cluster-fuck. But back to Mr Bell. Steve is incredibly dedicated not just to his job and his subject but to his students, sticking his neck out for Jordan more than a few times. But hey. I suppose it helps being married to your boss.
Ah yes. Mandy, played by Jo Joyner. She’s everything Steve could never be: compassionately driven rather than driven by compassion. She’s the Slytherin to his Hufflepuff… and yet they also share so much in common. He’s cheated in the past, she’s cheating now. But through it all, despite everything, they never stopped loving each other. Steve has being showing us all season how much he cares about the kids, and Mandy proves in the last episode by abandoning the meeting that may well save her career to be there for a pupil in a pickle – Missy Booth, more on her later – that she cares just as much as her husband does, if not more so. This is why, no matter what Slimy Sadiq (Adil Ray) says and does, Mandy Carter will always be headteacher of Ackley Bridge College. The love triangle between the three main adult characters may be tired, but with Sadiq tossing Mandy under the bus in the finale without a second thought to save himself after his own daughter outed the two’s affair live in front of the community (“that’s the only integration that’s been going on round here!” lol) the thing seems to be dead in the water. Which is one hundred per cent fine by me.
But, as hilarious as that moment was, Alya is dead wrong. Because it’s not. Friendships have been made, broken and forged anew. And there is no better example of this than the beautiful friendship between 17 year-olds Missy Booth (Poppy Lee Friar) and Nasreen Paracha (Amy-Leigh Hickman). They two of them are next door neighbours and have been best friends their entire lives – practically family. But here we see them at school together for the first time thanks to the merger project, and all the tensions that come out of that – culminating in the schoolyard fight at the end of the pilot. But, with the help of Nas’ mum, they make up in the next episode, and are the strongest friendship on the show for the rest of the season. And with season 2 confirmed for next year, I hope for damn sure it stays that way. Because it’s a damn delight to watch.
And now we arrive at my favourite plotline of the season: Nas’ coming out story. She tells Missy she’s a lesbian towards the end of the second episode, and while Missy is initially shocked she quickly accepts the revelation, because she’s the best best friend you could wish for, even acting as Nas’ wingman (or wingwoman, I guess) on more than one occasion. Then, when Nas comes out to her mum, who subsequently goes into total shutdown, Missy is the one there to talk Kaneez (Sunetra Sarker) into accepting her daughter for who and what she is in what was possibly my favourite scene of the season. After that, Kaneez begins to come to terms with it. In a show populated by singularly terrible parents, Kaneez stands out: caring, supportive, witty, and a truly good person in amongst the chaos that is having teenage children, especially ones under the kind of stress that Nas and Missy (who is basically a pseudo-child) are under. Family. In the best possible way.
Sidebar – although I loved just about everything about Nas’ story this season, I am also super glad that the writers nipped her budding relationship with Miss Sharif at the bud. Teacher-student relationships are almost always creepy at best, obsessive and abusive at worst, and it really felt like it was sending all the wrong messages, particularly seeing as though some still see many in the LGBTQ+ community as paedos and perverts anyway.
Anyway, back to Missy and Nas. Undoubtedly one of the most – if not the most – heartbreaking arcs of the season was that which dealt with the death of Missy’s nan and guardian, sending the lives of her and her sister spiraling into chaos. Possibly the biggest test of the strength of the girls’ friendship, this arc proved Nas’ commitment to their friendship, something mirrored in the following episode, which dealt with Nas’ coming out to her mum, and the aforementioned conversation/confrontation between Missy and Kaneez. The relationship drama between Mandy, Steve and Sadiq pales in emotional substance when compared to the friendship between Nas and Missy, which easily makes their complex and touching relationship the beating heart of Ackley Bridge. The show both opens and closes with the two of them, sat on a battered old sofa on an overflowing skip at the top of their street, getting drunk on cheap apple cider and reflecting on life. So much has changed for them – is still changing – but they’re still best mates. No amount of trauma is going to change that. Like Frodo and Sam, or Pooh and Piglet, or any other one of so many great fictional friendships ever written. They’ve just been through much together to stop now. They’re in for the long haul, and so, much to my delight, are we. Hickman and Friar do a stellar job playing the parts, despite only being 19 and 22. Kudos to the two of them. Big things are coming for them, of that I’m sure.
I could go on about these two forever, and there are so many more things I could talk about on this show (Emma Keane and her relationship with Missy, and how that affects her relationship with her own daughter; Missy’s junkie mother and all the complications that come along with being a child carer; the friendship between Jordan’s older brother Cory and Sadiq’s son Riz… just to name a few), but this thing is already way too long so I’m gonna wrap things up now. While Ackley Bridge can be unbearably cheesy at times, and occasionally predictable, this little show had a big heart, enormous charm, and a lot of love to share. So it’s an resounded thumbs up from me.
Ackley Bridge stars Jo Joyner, Paul Nicholls, Poppy Lee Friars, Amy-Leigh Hickman, Sam Bottomley, Liz White, Sunetra Sarker and Adil Ray, and is available for purchase on DVD from September 4th of this year.
Review by Louis Hindle
The Coherent Fanboy 