This article was originally published in The Courier on 10 June 2017.
ACKLEY BRIDGE: Wednesday, Channel 4
THE SUMMER OF LOVE:
HOW HIPPIES CHANGED THE WORLD: Friday, BBC Four
If,
by the time you read this, the Conservatives are still in power, cheer yourself
up by picturing a typical Daily Mail
reader being appalled by ACKLEY BRIDGE.
You have to seek small comforts wherever you can find them.
This
new pre-watershed comedy-drama from Channel 4 depicts the merging of two
hitherto segregated comprehensive schools in a Yorkshire mill town. An uneasy
marriage of white and Asian communities ensues, although the mild tension
between the two factions is based more on mutual unfamiliarity than actual
prejudice.
Kids
are used to multiculturalism, it doesn’t bother them, but they do love their
established cliques.
The
sympathetic, irreverent tone was set by an opening scene in which two
teenage girls, one white, one Asian, drank cider and quoted Einstein while sat
on a sofa discarded in a skip. These kids are mouthy yet bright and for the
most part likeable. Their teachers are young and progressive, but with problems
of their own.
Ackley Bridge has more in common with the modern academy from Channel 4's own heart-warming and tacitly political documentary hit Educating Yorkshire than the bland melodrama of Waterloo Road.
So
far the dominant storyline involves those aforementioned girls, best friends
since childhood, suddenly finding themselves caught between groups from different
cultural backgrounds. The white girl struggles with her drug-addicted mother,
while her friend attempts to placate the judgemental gossip of her female
Muslim peers.
No
one is presented as a villain. It feels like an honest exploration of contemporary
playground drama.
The
white lad who espouses dubious UKIP doggerel is portrayed as eloquent yet
confused. An aggressive cameo from his father suggested that this ambiguous lad
is a disenfranchised victim of prejudice he’s picked up at home – prejudice he
doesn’t fully understand.
Given
its state-of-the-nation themes, Ackley
Bridge could all too easily descend into well-meaning earnestness.
Thankfully, it’s rescued by an astutely balanced lightness of touch which
doesn’t undermine its essential sincerity.
Early
days, of course, but I feel cautiously optimistic that Channel 4 have produced
a thoughtful, accessible mainstream drama that should appeal to its potentially
core audience of open-minded teenagers and adults.
If,
into the bargain, it upsets the most awful people in the country, that can only
be a good thing.
Conservatives
still haven’t forgiven the ‘60s counterculture for impregnating western society
with its filthy Marxist Commie creed of peace, love and equality.
That
original hippie protest movement fomented a vigorous mistrust of powerful elites
and a growing awareness of environmental issues. It encouraged people to
question the motives of politicians, the police and the media, to expand their
horizons and support social change.
They
may have failed to overthrow capitalism and put an end to war, but those stoned
idealists triggered a cultural revolution of incalculable influence on
subsequent generations. Not bad for a bunch of flower-munching longhairs.
In
the excellent two-part documentary THE
SUMMER OF LOVE: HOW HIPPIES CHANGED THE WORLD, an eloquent throng of ageing
American radicals reflected on the Age of Aquarius with a candid mixture of
nostalgia and regret.
They
reminded us that, despite its egalitarian optimism, hippie ideology was
underpinned with anger and anarchy. Critics dismissed them as naïve dreamers,
but these tie-dyed kids were deadly serious.
Their
heady stew of radical politics, rock music, eastern philosophy, organic living
and hallucinogens did, for one brief, exciting moment, feel like the gateway to
a better tomorrow.
It
couldn’t last, of course, at least not in the form of a mass movement. Drug
problems, internal hypocrisy, commercialisation and brutal government
crackdowns quickly saw to that.
Yet
as long as freedom of expression and alternative viewpoints are permitted in the mainstream, their legacy endures.
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