Somewhere Boy

Fiction is fiction and it would be too easy to pick holes in the believability or logic of this scenario - so let's not bother. But as a study of alienation within and outside of family structures this series finds its mark. Are there monsters? Yes, of course there are. Can we always recognise them? No. Should we fear them? Well, ideally we should not be living in fear, and if we have fears we should be able to talk about them, and there is the point, amply expressed in the family scenes and in the role of Danny's cousin, Aaron.

In the role of Danny, Lewis Gribben is astonishing. As he explores his new world, his fascination, confusion, horror and joy are palpable, and the scene in which he falls in love for the first time broke me - like 'Heartstopper' but for grown-ups.

My only criticisms are of the 'Night of the Hunter' sequence which forms a somewhat cliched climax, and the final resolution which seemed dubious. After all, when you've escaped one prison, and you've started to discover yourself, surely the last thing you need is another incarceration. But maybe I'm just cynical about families.

In 'The Truman Show', a man grows up on the set of a virtual reality TV show, unaware of the "real" world outside. Yet Truman's reality is so like real life it's hard to feel so much is at stake when he tries to escape. The epnomymous 'Somewhere Boy' is this drama is kept cooped up a in Yorkshire farmhouse by his father, who tells him there are monsters outside. Although unlikely, you can imagine this happening; but what would be look like to be such a child, then to venture outside for the first time? Unfortunately, the drama struggles to meet the challenge it has set itself, and there's a dissonance between the ordinariness of the main story (with its shy but essentially normal protagonist) and the gothic horror of his backstory. More like a collection of illustrative scenes than a complete tale, it lacks the attention to detail that would have been needed to make it ring true.

Some wonderful acting here, without a weak link, but let down by two big failings. First, it was totally incredible that an intelligent young man wouldn't have questioned this isolated upbringing. Apart from anything else, where were the house's electricity and TV transmissions coming from? And secondly, at over three hours it was far too long. A two-hour span, comprising four half hour episodes, would have made for a tighter, more coherent drama. I thought this was a great shame, because as a coming of age drama, focusing on the three young people brought together by these painful events of the past, it would have been excellent viewing. Loved the old songs, a technique borrowed from Dennis Potter but no worse for that.

The show was alright. It's kinda slow and needed more depth or action for sure. The actors aren't that good. The storyline, I wish they would tell a backstop a bit more instead of word by mouth of what happened. It just goes everywhere, meaning the show. It doesn't follow the story very well.

The show is good if you don't have anything else to watch ( which is what I did lol). So, it did it's job meaning it entertained me enough. It would have been better as a movie I think so it didn't drag out. I think that is why it seemed so slow. Next time, put more UUMPH, into it and it will better. Other that it was fine.

I ended up feeling really annoyed that this was relegated to a TV series of eight half-hour episode. The performances deserved far better than this. I honestly feel that if it had been made into the feature film it so richly deserved, Oscar nominations would surely have been beckoning. Lisa McGrillis was absolutely incredible.

My only gripe was that episode 7 was unnecessary and completely broke the spell. There was no need for it at all and it seemed merely like a box-ticking exercise, forced upon the writer by a mis-guided producer.

If you've ever watched Dead Man's Shoes, this was almost like an alternative take on the story, although pulled off with far more aplomb. For a while, I even thought that the boy's father was being played by Paddy Considine, nut a few years down the line.

Perhaps it's too late now, but I really wish somebody would re-shoot this with the same cast and treat it with the respect it deserves. If they did, I feel sure it would be regarded as a major British film and pick up a bucket load of awards.