March 31, 2024
From the moment This Town was announced, I was intrigued and more than a little giddy. A new six-episode television show from the BBC about the Ska scene in 1980s England? Oh good God, yes!
Then factor in that it comes from Steven Knight, Who among other things, is one of the penmen behind the brilliant Peaky Blinders show, and before filming even began, anticipation filled the room like smoke at a Reggae show. The question then becomes about whether or not the show itself can live up to such lofty expectations.
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Of the many things I didn’t expect to come from This Town, was a storyline that introduced that era of British history fantastically and caught the issues of the time perfectly – no, it’s not racism from the police towards black British youth; that is a well-known and sad truth – it’s a storyline about the troubles between England and Ireland. Catholics and Protestants.
From scenes showing English troops, Black and Tans, fighting Irish upstarts on the streets of Ireland, to an IRA faction operating from inside Coventry to petty crimes and the struggle of the average person. Government greed and oppression. This Town also explores alcohol and drug abuse and those that survive it. It is about music, but so much more than that. It is about what causes rebellious music and counter-cultures into existence.
Being of Irish and English heritage, and an immigrant to Canada from England because of these sort of events, this is normally the sort of thing I try avoid watching – it upsets me. Here, however, the topic is handled very well and brilliantly emulates the woes of my childhood. This, after all, is a time I knew as it happened, although from a child’s perspective.
In the early moments as the show begins to unravel its story and introduce characters, I tried to figure out what band this might be about – and the joke was on me, because it’s about a fictional band.
Largely centralized around a football (soccer for our North American friends) hopeful turned pacifist, anarchist poet named Dante Williams (Levi Brown) – who slowly gravitates towards become a Rude Boy and his trials and tribulations. From suicidal thoughts that he can’t bring himself to act on, and the strange peace and clarity of mind that it brings him, to run-ins with a group of Skinheads – not due to race (real Skinheads are not racists despite what the mainstream media would have you believe) but over a girl. Of course.
Taking place in 1981, a year or so prior to the Falklands war that was key to the British Nationalist party turning Skinheads into bonehead extremists – a story for a other day. And without getting into politics, a few before the IRA takes around Great Britain really ramped up. A volatile time in British history that was the perfect breeding ground for multiple music genres to really take off.
While This Town dances around the music of the period and the renegades that refused to conform to the ideologies of the time, thus fusing English and Jamaican cultures into what would become a whole era, both in music, culture and working class mentality – it tackles the IRA troubles of the era in much more detail. Highlighting the woes while attempting to explain the situation from both sides of the equation.
Through out, the show is narrated by the inner voice of Dante Williams, who sprouts out poetry that is both deep and profound. These well-worded tidbits and thoughts help guide the viewer through the show and offers a glimpse at the sometimes comical, sometimes on-the-spectrum-like thoughts of our main character. His obsession with acoustics is a good example of both these elements.
There are moments while the dialogue and storytelling of the show very much echoes Knight’s work on Peaky Blinders and all it positively so. Relying strongly on cinematics while keeping the dialogue to the point, while still enough to get the story across, is one of the many strengths of the show. Despite unraveling itself in just six hour-long episodes, This Town is incredibly engrossing and brilliantly entertaining – and without spoiling anything, ends exactly as it should have.
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There are quite a few similarities between This Town and This Is England; the obvious connections being time period and place, counter-culture and racism of the era. Both are centralized around the world of music and both also introduce social economic events that were going on as well. The Falklands war in This Is England and the rising violence of the IRA in This Town.
Overall, This Town truly is a great television show that while fictional, is an important retrospective look into a period of British and Irish history that shaped both nations, as well as the music that formed generations and the generations to come.
