We're all just children, aren't we?

Continuing my trip down The Guardian's Top 50 TV Shows of 2024

#14 : Lost Boys And Fairies 

There wasn’t a dry eye in the house while watching this wondrous drama about a gay couple’s journey to adopting a child. It was a total pleasure to spend time with Gabriel (Sion Daniel Young) and Andy (Fra Fee) and their friends in the Cardiff drag community, and you rooted for them the whole time they navigated the turbulent adoption process. Then <spoiler alert>. It was beautiful, with the added bonus of fabulous drag performances in every episode.

I'd never even heard of this, so I was surprised it was so high. 

And - know what? This was really good. If you've not seen it, then I've massively improved things for you by removing text from the The Guardian's review because this goes places you wouldn't expect from the basic concept. Nominally it's about "a gay couple’s journey to adopting a child"  and, I believe, does a good job of conveying what a minefield of emotions are involved in something like adoption and how people are never perfect, but rarely as bad as they think they might be.

However, it all gets considerably more complex than that - considerably! Childhood trauma enters into it, some of it being related to being gay (and it seemed relatable giving my position of ignorance of such matters) but it goes way deeper than that covering parental abuse/abandonment, the AIDS epidemic, grief, domestic abuse and addiction. But, on the other hand, it also covers community, redemption through love, recovery from addiction and a load of other positive attributes - the balance is quite well done.

And it's very well acted - Fra Fee (how Americans like their coffee) and Siôn Daniel Young are the central couple and they do really well, with Sión in particular going on quite the journey through the season. Also to be commended are Elizabeth Barrington as their social worker (you might not recognise her name but she's been in LOADS in the last ten years), Sharon D. Clarke as Claire (the foster mother - she's been in loads too), Maria Doyle Kennedy as Sandra (Andy's mum - she's also been in loads and has released NINE albums), William Thomas as Emrys (Gabriel's dad - and his first role was in '74, so he's also been in loads) and Arwel Gruffydd as Berwyn (who doesn't have a Wikipedia entry - loser!). Finally, we have to mention Leo Harris as Jake (the adoptive child) who's a proper star who totally drags you in.

Without telling you any more than I already have, it's very well written. It has really good use of flashbacks and fantasy scenes to convey internal thoughts and the musical scenes are very well done - the montage which uses Tears For Fears' "Mad World" is really well done and (given it's in the third episode) ties really nicely back into previous episodes. And that's another thing in its favour - they gave it just the three episodes and that's your lot. And, to be honest, they really could have stretched it out to four and it wouldn't have ruined things - but they didn't and things just feel better for it.

In a very similar vein, the drag thang could quite easily have been overplayed but it's actually really nicely done and feeds nicely into the theme of community - it doesn't obviously relate to adoption but things actually tie together very nicely (because things are all a really quite a lot trickier than that). 

And finally, I do have to warn you that if you watch this then you're going to cry - yes, it's been written to tug at the heartstrings but it doesn't feel overly manipulative. It just covers sad events which are realistically written so you don't feel done - particularly because you are bought in to the relatable characters.

So, it's well written, acted and shot - I can see the gay/drag setting might scare some people off but it's really remarkably incidental and a lot of themes are universal and really well done, I'm still slightly surprised I'd not heard of this, but it's a strong recommendation from me - I was really glad (and tearful) that this was brought to my attention. And, if you choose to watch it, then you'll be pleased that I redacted The Guardian's description above - I've absolutely no idea what they thought they were doing giving away massive plot points.

#13 - I really should have watched this

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