When I see my latest energy bill, the price of petrol at the pump, the luminaries currently installed in government… well, living off the grid, away from the grip of society, looks rather appealing. That’s how Danny (Lewis Gribben) has spent the first two decades of his life in Pete Jackson’s Channel 4 drama Somewhere Boy, raised on nothing more than a diet of mini golf, gramophone records and Charlie Chaplin movies. It all sounds rather idyllic.
“Busy day tomorrow,” says Steve (Rory Keenan), Danny’s father, who has kept him locked up in their family home. “Danny?” he calls to his son, “love you mate.” Next thing we know, Steve has apparently shot himself, and Danny is packed off to live with his aunt, Sue (Lisa McGrillis) and her son Aaron (Samuel Bottomley). From there, Somewhere Boy is an examination of which is a more disastrous way to raise a child: in our horrible society or locked in a cabin in the woods watching Casablanca on repeat? On the “outside”, Aaron struggles to make meaningful friendships and relentlessly objectifies women, calling them “roast beef” and saying “she might get it”. Danny struggles with, well, everything.
