Many column inches have been devoted in recent weeks to the toxic rape culture that men like Andrew Tate have been fostering inside UK schools. This Channel 4 one-off shows us exactly what that looks like, and then some: it’s a searing, topical commentary that has come along at exactly the right time.
Natalie (Lashay Anderson) is a scholarship student at a posh private school. She’s a member of the debating society, has a tight circle of friends, and a shy flirtation going with her best friend Alice’s brother, quiet, studious Archie (Tom Victor). Then, after a drunken night out, she accuses him of rape.
It’s a story that’s all too familiar, but none the less shocking for it. Classism (Natalie is from a lower social class than her richer peers), sexism and racism are all unflinchingly examined by writer Emma Dennis-Edwards – as is the way that the school closes ranks around Archie, choosing to believe him rather than Natalie.
Importantly, Archie isn’t unlikeable, at least at the start. "I’m not like them, not really,” he tells Natalie about his friends. How? “I hate rugby.”
Sure, but he doesn’t hate the sleazy Facebook chat group that they’re part of – queasily named #slutsandstuff – where they share porn videos, discuss casual rape and imply that Archie is owed “birthday sex” at his party, where the incident later happens.
Archie will turn back to that group time and again for validation over the course of the drama – and in a smart rather than annoying directing decision, the boys join him in his room, or car, or classroom to read their messages out loud to his face. Given the content of those messages – one of them suggests “stick your dick in her gob to shut her up” – it makes for an uncomfortable watch.
Consent runs to a tight fifty minutes, and not one of them is wasted. Dennis-Edwards and her director Nadira Amrani steer with a sure hand, neatly establishing Archie and Natalie’s characters and relationships, before blowing everything up spectacularly. Special mention must also be given to the rest of the cast – in particular Ty Tennant, as Archie’s pal Raffy (Tennant has clearly mastered the art of playing arrogant, unlikeable tossers after his turn as Aegon in House of the Dragon).
Anger burns through every frame of this piece: from Alice’s refusal to believe her best friend over her brother – “he’s not like that!”, she protests – to the headmaster’s willingness to brush everything under the rug to protect the school’s reputation. Meanwhile, Archie hides behind his parents’ lawyers, unwilling or afraid to admit that he’s done anything wrong.
Though Archie and Natalie (and the school, Burlingdale) are fictional, the story behind it is all too real. Dennis-Edwards spent a lot of time researching on the anonymous forum Everyone’s Invited, where contributors can share stories of incidents of sexual abuse they’ve experienced in education, and the story uncomfortably evokes many similar incidents that have made it to the news – the chat thread of a group of male Warwick University students, for instance, which was revealed to contain violent sexual comments about their female counterparts.
With all that in mind, depressingly Consent isn’t shocking, but it is deeply sad. Above all, it’s very necessary viewing for both students and their parents: as a cautionary tale and as a damning indictment of our schools today. Watch and feel the rage.
