Telly Review: The Gathering is a watchable, gritty drama
The Gathering
I normally hate when a TV show starts with a violent scene and then goes back to explain what happened.
I didn’t mind it in (Channel 4). The gruesome assault on a teenage girl is hard to watch, but it sets the stakes. This isn’t Heartbreak High.
It’s a watchable, gritty drama set in Liverpool, following teenager Kelly who is on the cusp of the UK gymnastics team. She’s working class and hanging out with a gang of kids making videos of free-running stunts in the city.
Her friend and rival for the team is Jessica, a private school kid with a pushy mom called Natalie. Jessica also fancies Kelly’s sort-of boyfriend Adam. So far, so classic teenage drama. But we know from the opening shot that someone tried to drown someone who looks like Kelly at a beach rave, and we’re in flashback to see what happened.
It works because the adults are as compelling as the kids. Kelly’s father, Paul, comes across as Dad of the Year, looking after his two children after the death of his mother. But then he gets arrested for an historic offence when he assaulted Jules, the most convincing looking Posh Gobshite I’ve ever seen on TV.
Kelly loses her spot on the UK team after Jessica’s pushy mom records Kelly doing street gymnastics with her buddies, and then sends it to the coach. That’s a no-no in UK gymnastics — a who knew?
I went straight on to episode two because I couldn’t wait to find out if and why Paul assaulted Jules, which is obviously key to the plot. Like all the best dramas, the twists come from nowhere and what seemed like a subplot is suddenly front and centre.
The details are superb. Liverpool makes for a compelling back-drop, showing the rough and the smooth. The casting is tight so you believe these people and understand their motives. Jessica struggles with sex in real-life after sexting Adam a few times. There is even an allegedly dangerous dog, Rocky, with his own subplot.
You get immersed because it’s hard to make out who is really good or bad. The exception is Kelly, the moral centre of the story, but everyone else has a shade of grey about them. Natalie is at the evil end of that scale, manipulative and vicious in trying to get her daughter on the team ahead of Kelly. It’s enjoyable being around these people.
But in the end, you want to know if it really was Kelly assaulted at that beach rave? Who did it? And why? A brilliant drama — give it a watch.
