This action-packed BBC drama depicts the grim lives of Brits who emigrated to Australia in the 1950s. Its look at the ‘issues’ is a bit broad, but it doesn’t sugarcoat the truth
Danny Brocklehurst is perhaps best known as a writer on Shameless and Brassic, series with big mouths, big hearts and anarchic spirits, so you might wonder how the big BBC One Sunday night slot would suit him. Is Ten Pound Poms more Call the Midwife than call the police, or can it still keep a bit of that spark and pluck?
Ten Pound Poms tries to have it both ways, and mostly succeeds. It tells the story of the British people who responded to newspaper adverts in the 1950s inviting them to move to Australia to build a new life, all for the princely sum of £10. In the real world, about 1 million people signed up for the scheme. Here, we see it through the eyes of Terry (Warren Brown), a man with an impressive moustache and crippling post-traumatic stress disorder, left to languish in postwar Stockport, still suffering flashbacks to his time as a prisoner of war. Terry is a drinker, a gambler and a fighter, and his wife Annie (Faye Marsay) has had enough of him spending his wage packet at the pub and the track. In what might be one of the only recorded cases of people moving to Australia to avoid beer – just kidding, please don’t write in – the entire family undertakes the six-week voyage, on the promise of a better life.
Ten Pound Poms is showing in the UK on BBC One and iPlayer and in Australia on Stan.
