Top Boy (spoilers)

OK, first things first: it’s not ‘The Wire’, though they have similarities.  For a start it’s a four-hour drama not a sixty-odd-hour one, so it’s tightly focused on drugs gangs rather than branching out into the cops, local industry, the schools and the media.  There are moments in ‘Top Boy’ that aren’t great, usually because their tone echoes directly ‘The Wire’ or even ‘In Bruges’ (Leon IS Cutty, Ra’Nell IS Michael and as for the sheared fingers....).  This also doesn’t baulk the conventions, such as the beloved dog earmarked for death from its first appearance, nor the temptation to make its anti-hero sympathetic.

So, with that out of the way, all that’s left to say is that we liked it.  Ronan Bennett’s recent offering ‘Hidden’ pales in comparison.  Thankfully, neither the real worlds of high crime from Westminster nor low crime from Hackney are overly familiar, but the difference in realism between Top Boy’s characters and Hidden’s equates to that between Pixar and Noggin the Nog.  Here, Bennett makes no attempt to untangle the lives of Dushane, Sully et al, just to show how life is, what choices exist and what they mean for youth on an inner-city estate.  So the ending brought the drugs deal and several lives to a close, without any neat tying up.

Referring to lack of on-the-ground knowledge by us, we'll qualify the TWNH to a TWProbably NH, but would Raikes be a lone and unprotected operator?  How did Dushane keep finding cash for deals when he had his 'food' stolen twice?  Minor quibbles, since we probably missed the explanation as mumbled by characters while running, selling or shooting.

Must also say that Brian Eno's score was a rare example of a soundtrack that enhanced rather than distracted from, or was superfluous to, the visuals.  Television aimed at intelligent viewers is in short supply and we’re grateful to Channel 4!