White Heat

"White Heat" begins quietly and remains low-key, but it grows on you and the final episode yields a captivating surprise. Its strengths stand in contrast to the failings of "The Hour", another recent drama situated in recent British history. "The Hour" starts out looking like a thriller somehow related to the Suez invasion and Hungarian uprising of 1956; but the thriller plot fades into an inconsequential side-show and all that is left at the end is period soap-opera. "White Heat" follows its characters from 1965 to the present day, with public events mainly occurring in the background and serving as chronological markers, although they do impinge on the lives of two of the characters. Some aspects of the plot are stereotyped, but the drama scrupulously eschews soap-opera glitz, and the characters show plausible development--that's why it grows on you. The actors are generally excellent, but I did feel that the casting of Juliet Stevenson as the present-day avatar of Claire Foy's character was ill judged, since the appearance, styles and diction of the two actors are all strikingly dissimilar. It might have mattered less had the drama been chronologically divided between "then" and "now", but there is no way that the character portrayed by Foy over 35 years could have turned, in another 20, into the character played by Stevenson.

Like at least one of the other reviewers I lived through this period, the characters commencing at university in 1965 and I commenced in 1966 so the events against which their lives were played out are the same as mine. I found the period very well created, and the dynamics in the household were very true to life. British universities were full of 'Jacks' in the 1960's, usually little rich boys who dreamed of being Che or Marx who unlike the Alan's and Orla's of that world had no real principles. I recall my school senior year voting (in a mock election)overwhelmingly Labour - at a public school in Christopher Soames' constituency (Soames was Winston Churchill's son in law and a staunch Conservative). As part of a sit-in group which evicted the Vice-Chancellor from his office at Birmingham University, and as a fringe participant to the Grosvenor Square 'riot' portrayed in Episode 2, I believe that the series captures the period well, including the attitude of the various parents depicted in episode 1 who had no concept of the aspirations of their children, often the first generation to even contemplate a university education and the subsequent events. It was a time of change and the series depicts it well.

...and continue to prosecute their teenage grievances 30 years later.

Clunky dialogue and annoying characters. The real problem with the series isn't the haphazard history, it's the utter implausibility of the friendships it depicts. There's not much here that's genuinely novel and for a show centred on twenty-somethings discovering the pleasures of the sixties there's precious little joy to be found.

Quickly proves to be a warmed-over and tepid mishmash of changing-times clichés. By the last episode I just didn't care whose flat it was.

Clichéd, whiny drivel about middle-aged disappointment and people whose emotions are seemingly stuck in aspic.

Follows the lives of seven London housemates from their youth in mid-1960s to the present day. Many of those well-known events during that era form the backdrop of the lives of the seven protagonists.Naturally there are many ups and downs in their personal lives and their particular interactions with each other. I know some use the word cliché to describe familiar situations, but much of a life lived is a cliché to all of us, but this doesn't mean it's not interesting or informative.

Very strong cast of the younger and older versions of the seven characters and the script maintains a strong level throughout. If all you want from a miniseries are murders and heroics, then don't bother with White Heat. If you are after a genuine dramatic depiction of how ordinary people live their lives while the world seems to be imploding around them, then you'll get something out of this mini-series.

I can understand why some people have mixed feelings about this drama series. The dialogue is a little clichéd and occasional non-contemporary idioms pop up and the deep involvement of so many significant social and historical events in the lives of this small group of individuals is a rather incredible over-concentration of themes. Nonetheless, it's a consistently engaging series with very well acted characterisations that rise above those problems and to its credit it conveys the feel of those times, certainly as I remember them, very accurately. Perhaps best of all, it conveys the folly of a lot of youthful social behaviour, with years lost to mistakes and the realisation of how much was lost and how much better things could have been coming only in old age. That is how it is for many of us. I was pleased though that there was a sense of lessons learned and opportunities rekindled at the end, again how it is for many of us. Well worth watching.