Waterloo Road (BBC One, Tuesday, 9pm) follows in a proud tradition of British dramas that portray school and adolescence as twin hellscapes from which there is no escape. It’s a lineage that goes back to the early 1980s and Grange Hill, where plot lines invariably revolved around someone having their head shoved down the loo/being expelled for glue sniffing.
That small-screen landmark was followed by Skins and Ackley Bridge – which delivered ripe portraits of adolescence as a rite of passage brimming with all sorts of pressures. Now, the trials of growing up too fast – or having to teach children who are growing too fast – are updated by Waterloo Road, set in a “failing comprehensive” school in Greater Manchester.
The big talking point going into the latest season of a show around in various incarnations since 2006 is comedian Jason Manford’s addition to the cast. He plays the careerist new principal Steve Savage – here referred to as a ‘head teacher’ – at Waterloo Road, which has now been upgraded to an “academy” (very different from a comprehensive, apparently).
As a comic, Manford is known for his high-octane pithiness. He brings a similar quality to his soap debut, though he doesn’t feature much in an opening episode more concerned with predecessor Joe Casey (James Baxter) and his struggles to adjust to the pressures of the job.
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There are plenty of pressures facing the students, too. One girl is receiving bullying texts from an anonymous troll – who turns out to be closer to home than she thought. Other pupils get involved in an altercation in the yard – an outbreak of violence that exists purely to demonstrate the floundering incompetence of poor, flailing Joe.
He’s soon for the high road – his prospects not helped by his decision to move the staff room to an oversized cupboard (the teachers threaten to strike). Enter Manford’s Savage, who takes over as head and agrees to keep the desperate Joe as his number two – a useless Will Riker to his Jean-Luc Picard. In the background, meanwhile, is actor, singer and presenter Kym Marsh as school cook Nicky Walters – who has a complicated past with Savage.
British soaps can be hit or miss for Irish audiences. There’s obviously a lot of shared cultural connectivity – but not always as much as you might think, and these shows sometimes bounce off viewers here. Moreover, the UK education system is very different from the Irish equivalent.
But growing up is an ordeal everywhere, and Waterloo Road captures the struggles of adolescence unflinchingly and without descending into melodrama. Unlike the dreadful Euphoria – with its cast of glamorous 30-somethings masquerading as school-goers – the students all look like real teenagers, too, contributing a dash of realism to a soap that ranks towards the top of the class even if it isn’t quite straight-A viewing.
