This Town

This just hits the spot. There was such edginess at that time in the 70's/80's, inequality, racism, skinheads, the awful troubles in Ireland, industrial strife and the general failing of society to look after people that needed help. 'This Town' picks bits of that and melts it together in a glorious understanding of it all, with a great core story, fabulous tunes and poetry from the lead actor. He stood so tall he made me feel proud to be British. Please give us more of this raw, untamed, shout out feel good of life. There are stories still to be told. A wonderful TV show. Rock on BBC, you can make great drama.

I'm not really sure why was the promoted about the 2-Tone record label and the Ska music movement of 1979-81. 2-Tone was massive for those two glorious years of fantastic music thanks to the legend Jerry Dammers. However this series has nothing at all to do with 2 Tone, a few Trojan tracks a few tracks from The Selecter and that's it, I was expecting more about the legendary era.

This drama is OK in itself, a good watch, not fantastic but a good watch none the less but it's more about the IRA troubles of the time which to be honest I think most people would rather forget.

The other side of the story is about the band they are trying to form and to be honest they would have got no where, no talent there like there was in the actual 2-Tone bands where the music is still loved today some 40 years on.

Personally I think they dropped the ball on this one, it should have been 100% about the beginning of 2 Tone and how it affected kids, why they got it to it, how it became so massive, the culture, the music, the fashion and the hot hatch cars of that era, we don't need the IRA.

I am very surprised at the rave reviews here. This is so beautiful to watch, and so close visually to the Midlands of that era, but the storyline! Its pitiful. The accents are almost all terrible. How hard is it to ask a Brummie how to end their sentences? The sappy love stories, the terrible original music, and most of all, the predictable pattern of the narrative are cringeworthy. A band making it because they have the will! How original. Is it really that easy? I might form one....

Finally, a show not set in Belfast, Scotland or London, and its like a teenager wrote the plot. My lord, this hurt so much to watch.

Beautifully shot, great music, good actors, amazing locations and wardrobe. But it just doesn't come together.

Some parts are rushed while others are lingered on for too long without any real impact, emotional or artistic.

The characters speak like they're in a play - too dramatic, forever reciting someone else's words. You can tell there is a lot of talent on the screen, but it goes to waste. The characters aren't developed in an interesting way, or aren't developed at all. Their arc are murky, not intentionally (which can be interesting) but in a lackluster, clumsy sort of way.

Even the way the songs were edited in felt like they were always missing the punchline, and there were some GREAT songs in this show. It's like the scenes and the music are disjointed, not well-suited.

Dante felt, to me, a very difficult main character. He is so disconnected from anything that doesn't directly involve him (and some things that DO involve him) that it kept making me disconnect and pull away from the show. There were good moments with the other characters that got drowned in lots of scenes of cardboard cutouts of people talking to each other in predictable, wooden dialouge.

It's an entertaining show but could have been so much more.

From the creator of Peaky Blinders Steven Knight.

There are moments when it has a similar feel with some of the dialogue.

Like Peaky Blinders it has a great soundtrack. Once I got into the second and third episodes I started to really like it, and invested into the characters a lot more. Felt like I was waiting a long time for the development of the band, but plenty of other stories to keep you going until that point. Felt like The Commitments at one point as the band were coming together. A few very good performances from the lead characters, especially Levi Brown & Michelle Dockery, who couldn't have been any further away from the character she played in Downton Abbey.