Channel 4’s high-concept drama The Gathering might have been the latest from the producers of Line of Duty and Vigil, but this gripping portrait of adolescent angst and toxic parenting couldn’t have been more different. Instead of corrupt coppers or submarine shenanigans, this taut thriller was about a violent assault on a teenager during an all-night rave by the sea. The first episode was a masterclass in keeping an audience on its toes.
The opening scenes introduced a drunken mob of teens drinking and dancing by the shore until the camera cut to a screaming girl whose head was being shoved into the water by an unknown assailant out of view of the festivities. Had she died? A radio voiceover the following morning said she had been found in an unresponsive condition. But her fate was not revealed and the screen faded to black.
To shed light on the mystery of the assailant’s identity each of the six episodes will be told from the perspective of a different protagonist. The first concentrated on the victim, Kelly (Eva Morgan), and flashed back to the weeks before the attack, when she was competing for the last place on a Liverpool gymnastics team.
Kelly was from a hard-knock Merseyside background and had been a lost soul since the death of her mother. She defied her loving and supportive dad Paul (Warren Brown) by hanging around with a bunch of ne’er-do-wells while they made TikToks of their illicit parkour free-running stunts around Liverpool, but had found a soulmate in Jessica (Sadie Soverall), well-to-do daughter of pushy mum, Natalie.
The two girls shared a healthy streak of cynicism. Their relationship had grown complicated, however, when Jessica developed a crush on one of Kelly’s parkour gang – a bad-boy free-runner with a sensitive side. It soured further when Kelly’s gym coach pulled her aside and quietly confirmed she had been picked for the final spot, and Kelly said nothing to Jessica.
Her friend continued to believe they were in it together and only discovered what had happened when rumours of the snub reached her mother. Kelly apologised for not telling her friend, Jessica wished her luck – but then Kelly was thrown off the team after someone (presumably Jessica’s mum) leaked images of her risking her career by doing backflips with her parkour pals in the town centre.
Was Jessica involved in that attack at the beach? We didn’t see her at the party in that opening scene – but her relationship with Kelly was clearly headed towards a dark place.
There was a lot of plot, and The Gathering could have easily ended up over-stuffed and confusing. But writer Helen Walsh (known for her novels Brass and Once Upon a Time in England) kept the narrative plates spinning with ease and pulled off the difficult task making us care about the characters as much as we did about the central crime.
In fact, one thing this drama did have in common with the likes of Line of Duty was its cast of morally ambivalent characters, from the loving but competitive Natalie (played by Boiling Point’s Vinette Robinson, brilliant as a control freak who can’t get a handle on her obsessive tendencies) to Kelly’s dad Paul, who had the best intentions but struggled to control his temper. The emotions here felt real: Kelly’s confusion about whether to stay on the straight and narrow or cut loose with her street gang; the tension between Jessica and her mum.
The early scene of the assault at the beach suggested we were set for a straightforward thriller: who had attacked Kelly and why? But The Gathering broadened out into something more interesting and less conventional – a tale of teenage rivalry and of adults (Natalie undermining Kelly so that Jessica could get ahead; Paul getting into a violent row with a solicitor which made him a person of interest to the police) who were wanting the best for their kids but going about it in the worst way possible.
‘The Gathering‘ continues tomorrow at 9pm on Channel 4
Sophie Anderson, a UK-based writer, is your guide to the latest trends, viral sensations, and internet phenomena. With a finger on the pulse of digital culture, she explores what’s trending across social media and pop culture, keeping readers in the know about the latest online sensations.
