Cult TV Blog

I'm putting Gangsters (1976 - 1978) as the first blog post in this series of posts about TV related in some way to Birmingham to get the post which I anticipate will be most difficult out of the way first.  Recently I seem to be writing  a lot here that I find various shows difficult or don't understand things, and I suspect that this is because I'm in a place where I can think about a few things I've been trying not to think about. So of course I'm going to have to come clean and admit that I love this show dearly but also find it incredibly difficult. I honestly find it confusing, am never very sure what is happening or who is who and keep getting distracted by the spectre of some since-demolished Brutalist masterpiece. In preparation for this post I have watched through the whole show again (over a few weeks, not in one go), read what I could find about it online and watched the Open University show about it which forms an extra on the final disc of the DVD box s...

I honestly can only assume that I have missed this series because I didn't think I would like it. I have certainly seen the boxed set around, but because I somehow hadn't heard of it as a vintage TV series, I suppose I assumed it was a modern series and hence overlooked it. So let me be honest and admit that I am writing about this show with a HUGE bias. In fact I'm not so much biased as prejudiced. In its favour, that is, for the simple reason that it is not only set in my home city of Birmingham, but it is also filmed in the Birmingham of the 1970s and is wonderfully atmospheric of a certain time in the life of the Second City. To be frank, I think it quite likely that this series won't have done the city's reputation any favours, simply because it portrays it as as gang- and violence-ridden cesspit. It certainly wasn't that in the 1970s, and certainly isn't now, despite having a ridiculously high crime rate. Yes, if you look up Birmingham and gangs ...