Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Warren Brown, Eva Morgan, Sonny Walker, Sadie Soverall, Vinette Robinson, Richard Coyle, Jodie McNee, Luca Kamleh-Chapman, Ryan Quarmby, Oliver Nelson, Mia Johnson, Rob Jarvis, Poppy Miller, Charlie Griffiths, Christine Tremarco, Deborah Bouchard, Emma Keele, Mia Carragher, Emma Bispham, Michael Ledwich.

The pressure we are placing on our children as we live vicariously through their actions is almost as dangerous as the situations and times that we find ourselves in as we stumble through the last few years with unresolved anger and resentment banging on our doors as negativity, as jealousy and creativity clash in a way that we perhaps arguably as a species have never faced before.

Created by Helen Walsh, The Gathering is a superb example of rage in suburbia, in the city where it spills out because certain parents of possibly gifted children use their influence, even their fury to gain an advantage for their offspring when half a world away, all a right-thinking adult asks only that their children survive what wrath has placed at their door.

Whilst it may be seen as a possible murder mystery in the making, what gives The Gathering its sense of social commentary is the directness of the lack of understanding of how society should really work, that many within the framing could be considered in the modern parlance of being toxically challenged, thriving under the weight of their own self-importance and position.

The spotlight falls upon the intensity of competition, of the two girls vying for a place on the gymnastic team and the differing expectations that both suffer under the guidance and lessons from their own parents and the instructor, played superbly by Jodie McNee, and how their interactions lead to a wider and fiercely damaging illumination of what occurs when jealousy and confrontation spills out into the wider world.

With superb performances by Vinette Robinson, Sadie Soverall, Richard Coyle, Sonny Walker, and wonderful additions Merseyside  actors Michael Ledwich, the ever-impressive Charlie Griffiths, and Rob Jarvis, The Gathering deals with the growing intensity that surrounds the lives of those involved, of how the possible suspects show their hand as they deal with their own insecurity, their own hatred, and the nature of envy when it is magnified, when rumour and hearsay find themselves being treated as truth.

A superb and penetrating series, one of great extremes and passionate writing; The Gathering is excellent drama worth investing in. 

Ian D. Hall