TV review: Waterloo Road

Published on Wednesday 1 September 2010 16:09

Waterloo Road BBC1

There was an outcry when Grange Hill was axed two years ago, but it didn't really go away. The school just changed its name to Waterloo Road and reopened with slightly more emphasis on the teachers. Sure, Grange Hill was an (excellent) children's programme and Waterloo Road is shown in prime-time for an adult audience but, oddly enough, the former seemed to have more depth and maturity.

It's one of those series that sounds good on paper, full of topical issues - home schooling, sex education, teacher/pupil relationships and education authority bureaucracy. Considering how many people either work in education or have children, clearly there should always be as much of a place for a school drama as there is for cop or hospital shows.

The problem is that Waterloo Road is a soap opera. And not a very engaging one. There's a high turnover of characters who are all briskly sketched with only as much detail as is required for their storyline. No-one ever does anything surprising or avoids the obvious traps duly inserted into the plot, so the outcome of every story is as predictable as the annual outcry over exams being "too easy".

Eva Pope used to be the headmistress whose secret was that she used to be a prostitute, but left after marrying the school cook to travel the world (which is an unusual reaction to school dinners, but she must have had a thing about pink custard). So now there's a new headteacher who is equally feisty, authoritative and all that, and who also has a troubled past. And, because Waterloo Road is not about to push any boundaries by introducing a startling new talent, she's played by Amanda Burton.

Now, I'm sure Ms Burton has her fans, but I've never met one: she's a perfect example of the actor who rises without trace to suddenly be in everything without ever making any kind of real impact or changing her performance. She was wistful yet steely in Brookside, Peak Practice, Silent Witness and The Commander. Only the uniforms change: Burton is someone's go-to gal for professional women trying to juggle responsibility with immaculate make-up.

Needless to say, her Karen Fisher is not a career-changing role. The new heidie is capable and supposedly caring (though Burton's frozen face doesn't exactly convey it).She's not just a teacher, she's a mother, with two teenage children for obligatory youthful rebellion and cues for "How can I control this school when I can't even control my own children?"

Since one of the other new characters, geography teacher Marcus, also has two kids at the school, it makes the whole thing seem more insular and soapy than ever, with everything revolving around half a dozen characters while the rest of the school is just there to be shouted at for running in corridors.

Then there's the interminable pop soundtrack, an irritating habit picked up from US dramas like Grey's Anatomy but taken to extremes in Waterloo Road where every remotely emotional or comic scene is brutally interrupted by a tune with a literal lyrical connection. It stands in for meaningful dialogue or acting and feels like canned laughter on a bad sitcom. At least Grange Hill finished before it was forced to do this kind of thing. As for Waterloo Road, I'll "just say no".