Review of the dreamers – This teenage dance drama is too thin for its good. Where is the fading? | Television and radio
TThe implausability of the drama for teenagers could be the characteristic of definition of the genre. In the 1900s, we were subjected to Glamor not told and incessant wisdom by imports such as The OC and Gossip Girl. The equivalent of the United Kingdom was the skins, in which a group of animals of the Bristolian Party party managed to make practically every personal problem known to the man who seemed intimidating. More recently, we have had amazing levels of fading Euphoriaamazing levels of sexual literacy and candor from sexual education and amazing levels of moving pleasantness from Heartstopper. Everything is ridiculous in his own way.
The dreamers are different. It is realistic – scarcely like this. This is both a professional and a scammer for this channel 4 drama on a group of teenagers who live in Leeds. The series – written by Lisa Holdsworth (Waterlo Road) and Gem Copping (Eastenders), and directed by Sara Dunlop – is spinning in a meticulously naturalistic way. The camera tends to dwell, in documentary style, on the characters, that they are doing something interesting or not: chatting without a destination, walking to work, take a glass of water. It is very much the kitchen sink, not least in the sense that there are more shots of old kitchen sinks. (The original title of the show was Dance The school, which captures the No-Frills mode, much better than dreamers.) The dialogue is scarce, signed and unusually faithful to life; The jokes for teenagers are credibly embarrassing and sometimes people answer questions with “I don’t know” and the conversation is just a kind of end. In combination with the flood of the dancing films – which seems brilliant and beautiful for the most part – the aesthetic of the dreamers is strong and relaxing: the dynamic movement dotted with squalid normal shots, like a photography by Martin parish for life.
Our protagonist – however there is one – is a puppy (the princess Nelia Mubaiwa), whose mother, Erica, manages the collective of dance Chapelown. The puppy is talented but shy and uncertain if he wants to become a professional dancer or has simply internalized his mother’s dreams. At the beginning, it seems that the collective star is her funny friend but obsessed with themselves Koby (Demarkus Marks). But it turns out that it is not a friend at all: as soon as the puppy begins to attract the attention of scouts and choreographers, Koby becomes very crossed.
The above is practically the entire plot of dreamers. Apart from the rivalry of Puppy and Koby (if I could even call it that; all the puppy tries to do is defuse the situation), there is only another narrative thread: the difficult situation of their partner dancer Liam, whose disappointment of a mother continues to leave him to take care of his younger sisters. If you thought that the dance element could only be a background for a heavier story about love, sex or drugs or share capital or anything else, you will be disappointed: this show concerns the dance a lot.
Sometimes, the subject is treated with compelling insiderism – in a video taken for the Leeds The rapper Graft, Koby and the puppy are initially praised and then emotionally affected by the choreography team in an example of treatment that seems to be the standard of the sector – and the show is good at immersing the public in a specific layer of the world of amateur dance without exploding excessively. But this also means that the stakes can be very vague. For most of the series, I had the impression that the collective had qualified for a sort of competition, but in the end we don’t even see the event, not to mention its meaning. Practically all the developments of the plot are transmitted with that type of euphemism; There is nothing coarse as climatic revelation here. Only a lack of depth or danger prevents dreamers from remembering an Impressionist indie film.
It is not exactly boring. In fact, this is an easy show to binge, and the more I look at, the more I find myself attracted by the languid atmosphere and the sweetness of steel of the puppy. It is also a pleasure to see a group of mainly black British characters who live somewhere different from London (also a special mention, for the musical theme of Leeds. Intelly). Yet, sometimes this makes you want the ridiculously high plot and the comic caricatures of the past of dramas for teenagers; Despite all its authenticity, I’m not sure there is enough here to grasp the duration of the attention of its target audience. Dreamers is a pleasantly low antidote to the worst excesses of its kind, but he also has something to learn from his most ruthless colleagues.
