This Town

This 'ode to 2 tone' missed the mark for me unfortunately as a viewer.

It set out with good intentions but was not executed properly. It was trying to do too many things at once which can be done effectively however this is not an example of this being done.

It touches touches on a myriad of issues and themes such as youth subculture, racism, ira, police brutality, concrete jungle in the Midlands in the late 70s and early 80s

But this was not done effectively with lukewarm story which is a bit murky in places and jumpy with no real grit nor proper emotion in conveying such themes.

It does resemble some of the hallmarks of this period with the fashion and bleakness - true - but they do not convey this properly - felt like dress up of a thing trying to be impactful which it wasn't...

It is a real shame as it looked like it had a good budget. I liked the clothing although they could have done a little better with the music tracks. The only real redeeming feature of this is David Dawson's performance which is commendable.

I just had to bingewatch this. The 80s was my era, I lived in Brum as a kid and I have always been a bluenose (Birmingham City fan. The Zulu Warriors was the name given to the hooligans associated with the club not all the fans despite the terrace being known as the Spion Kop).

The fusion of the people, the music, vehicles, buildings and cars is all spot on. The only downside wee the ropey Brummie accents and the BCFC logo which the club did away with in 1976, 5 years before this was set.

It would be great to see more but this will probably be the end of the fantastic series The second city rarely makes tv but great when it is.

As another reviewer said, they tried to do too much and failed to do anything. They could have done so much more with the music of the time and they failed. But most of all the original music is terrible. The band as such would never have been popular.

Then they tried to shoehorn the IRA into the show. Great, do an IRA show or do a Two Tone show. Not both. Then they tried to add M Thatchers in to the mix. Add a dollop of soap opera and you end up with an uneven pile of crap.

I did enjoy quite a few parts of this but I would have to be convinced about a second series. More Ska/Two Tone and less IRA.

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.

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.