The Gathering: Channel 4 teen drama turns tables on toxic parents

Boiling Point star Vinette Robinson (right) portrays the particularly objectionable mother of Jessica, played by Sadie Soverall

A new Channel 4 drama follows a group of teenagers as they try to navigate the world of sex, school, smartphones and social media.

But the inevitable bad behaviour on display in The Gathering isn't always being carried out by the teens.

The Liverpool-based series is, as producer Simon Heath puts it, an exploration of "toxic teenagers - and their even more toxic parents".

The internet may have opened up a whole world of problems and risks for young people, from cyber bullying to leaked nudes, but the changing dynamic between parents and children is one which hasn't been examined as much on screen.

One particularly ghastly mother in The Gathering, for example, tries to pay her daughter's boyfriend to stop seeing her, and uses skulduggery to get her daughter's friend bumped off a sports team so her own child can have the place instead.

The helicopter parenting on show is largely a symptom of the smartphone era. Bulletin emails and WhatsApp groups allow parents to share information, while their children are traceable and contactable all the time.

"One of the things that really interests me is how we are all very invested in our kids, when I'm not sure previous generations were invested in the same way," says the show's writer Helen Walsh.

"And what excites me as a writer is when this over-investment spills into something toxic and malign. The rise of surveillance parenting I find, as a cultural and generational shift, really fascinating, this minute-by-minute tracking of our kids' lives and whereabouts."

The Channel 4 drama explores several issues raised by smartphone culture

But at the other end of the spectrum are "the strategies of resistance that teens deploy to outfox their parents", she points out.

"One of the joys of adolescence is it's about striking out, having fun, and the latter stages are a transition period where teens should have self-determination, more autonomy. But it feels as if they're becoming very policed, especially in the physical world.

"And interestingly, the space they feel they have ownership of is the online world, which I find quite scary because that's a world that's not policed."

Filmed and set on Merseyside and produced by the team behind Line of Duty and Bodyguard, The Gathering begins with a violent attack.

In the show's opening scene, an illegal rave is taking place on a beach. But a little further along the shoreline, a young girl's head is being held underwater by an unseen assailant. The story then jumps back six months to explore the chain of events which preceded it.

Starting a TV series with a shocking flash-forward is a tiresome and overused narrative device, but once the plot spools back and the series finds its groove, it is superb. The Gathering is filled with well-rounded, believable characters who grapple with a smorgasbord of contemporary themes.

The show's heart and soul is Kelly (played by Eva Morgan) a gifted gymnast who, in her spare time, is part of a free-running gang who regularly attempt dangerous stunts.

Kelly (right, played by Eva Morgan) is a promising gymnast who tries dangerous parkour stunts outside of school

"She's such a force," says Morgan, "a protector to her family, and she wears her heart on her sleeve. But at the end of the day, she's a teenager, so she's navigating her life and trying to find herself."

Her co-star Sonny Walker highlights the sizeable role social media plays in the plot. "Young people can present themselves however they like on social media, things can go viral, get sent around, people can be pressured into doing things," he says.

"I also think a lot of young people watch how other young people live, and that can put unnecessary pressure on them. I think this show presents that very well through different characters."

Walsh was inspired to explore the issue of parents who impose their agendas and problems on their children after revisiting Philip Larkin's This Be The Verse. "The last time I'd read it was as a teenager, and I was aware of how different my response was," she says.

Larkin's poem is famous in particular for its striking opening line, which we can't fully reproduce here due to its explicit language:

They [mess] you up, your mum and dad / They may not mean to, but they do / They fill you with the faults they had / And add some extra, just for you.

Reflecting on the poem as an adult, Walsh says: "All of us as parents, we make decisions, and no matter how thoughtful and considered, and even though they're made with the very best intentions for our children, we don't really have any idea how it's going to turn out, often until it's too late."

Novelist and screenwriter Helen Walsh says she "finds the rise of surveillance parenting fascinating"

Boiling Point star Vinette Robinson, who portrays arguably the show's most objectionable parent, Natalie, says the role was "brilliant fun to play because she behaves so outrageously".

"She doesn't have boundaries that other people have, because she feels the need to get ahead, she's come from a place where she's learned life is hard and so to survive it gives her a very forceful instinct.

"But then obviously we see how that impinges on her daughter and how she has boundary issues, and that develops into a toxic trait."

There's been no shortage of teen-focused dramas in recent years, from Euphoria to Heartstopper. Channel 4 themselves previously delved into the same world with shows such as Skins. But that late noughties cult hit was filmed in the pre-smartphone era, and today's teens inhabit a totally different world.

"I absolutely loved Skins," Walsh recalls, "and when my son was 13 that was the first kind of teen drama that he and his friends saw.

"But it was always my intention to explore the online world as a key central space in which young people are coming of age, forming their identities, forming romantic and sexual relationships."

An overdue hit for Channel 4?

Actor Sonny Walker says social media places "unnecessary pressure" on young people

The release of The Gathering comes during a difficult period for Channel 4, which arguably has not had a new breakthrough hit since 2021's It's A Sin. The possibility of privatisation led to a turbulent time for the network, while the proposed launch of its own production arm has concerned independent production companies.

"Distinctiveness is what Channel 4 is there for," broadcast consultant Ann Charles recently told the Media Podcast. "The industry shouted very loudly about saving Channel 4 [from privatisation], and then for the last couple of years, for whatever reason, Channel 4 hasn't really produced anything that shows why everyone was shouting about saving them."

The perceived lack of hits is a criticism its chief executive is aware of. Last month, Alex Mahon told BBC Radio 4: "If you look at Channel 4 last year, we had big new shows like The Piano, if you look at our top 10 shows, about 30% or 40% of them are new... The question for us is always how you balance existing things that consumers want for longer, with fresh new things."

The network will be hoping The Gathering is one of the fresh new things which might just catch fire for audiences.

Liverpool sunshine

Morgan says she found it "really special" to film the series in the city that raised her. "I'm obviously from there," she says through a thick Scouse accent, "and I think there's so much heart in the city. And cinematically, the way it was shot, it was so atmospheric, it felt kind of real".

Heath reflects: "I think everyone was delighted that we were showing Liverpool as Liverpool, because it does get a lot of filming where it's pretending to be 19th Century London or New York.

"And also to go out to the Wirral, which is less filmed in, and it's kind of unique. We think of it as an idyllic idea, but it's cheek by jowl with underprivileged estates, so it spans both worlds."

"The world of Liverpool becomes its own character and it's so lovely to see on screen," he concludes, "and we were blessed with some sunshine as well."

The Gathering begins at 21:00 BST on Tuesday 14 May on Channel 4.