In response to the recent Black Lives Matters civil rights movement that has (rightfully) gripped the entire globe, ITV decided to create four 15 minute shorts, filmed in lockdown (just like they did with ‘Isolation Stories’) tackling different British perspectives on race relations.
All episodes are tackling different perspectives on racism and race relations, and all are very valid and important topics to look at. I think some episodes are definitely more successful than others, but I respect what they were trying.
The final episode ‘Lavender’ is very grating and really doesn’t help anyone as it is just a shouting match that struggles to get to any real conclusion.
A very effective episode however is the opener titled ‘Generational’ which explores why a black father doesn’t want his daughter to attend BLM protests due to incidents he’s had in the past, and the racism that he’s lived through all his life. This episodes takes the characters on a journey in its short run time and I would’ve loved to see a feature length version of this.
There’s not much more to say due to the short length of the episodes, and there are much more important voices than mine that need to be heard talking about race relations, but I applaud ITV for tackling this and hopefully if the Covid-19 situation improves soon, we can see them tackle these crucial issues with full series.
Rating = 3/5
Howe's World of Film and TV 