Floodlights; Lovestruck High

“The drama was powerful stuff, just delivered in a slightly erratic manner. It was filmed mostly in near darkness, presumably as a metaphor for the subject matter and the state of Woody’s mind, and was self-consciously cinematic in its big-synth soundtrack, extreme close-ups and long fades to black. Yet there were moments where it felt like the script had skipped a couple of pages.”
Benji Wilson, Telegraph

“Floodlights is a harrowing watch, even if you allow for its subject matter: the sexual abuse of boys on an industrial scale by football coach Barry Bennell. For anyone with sensibility it will be, I’m afraid to say, all too much.”
Sean O’Grady, The Independent

“All the child actors are terrific, but none more so than Max Fletcher as Woody, a gangly shy boy with big, angelic eyes. “It was the softer, weaker boys he targeted,” Woodward said of Bennell in his Guardian interview and, while the self-recrimination that may be behind those words makes me queasy, Fletcher’s portrayal of the young Woody as gentle and gauche bears out the remark.”
Stuart Jeffries, The Guardian

“In some ways Floodlights was the most sickening drama in years, perhaps since BBC1’s Three Girls. Sickening as in feeling sick with revulsion at a sexual predator, or sick with sympathy for his victim, a hopeful child footballer called Andy Woodward. Sickening, however, is also an uneasy word to describe this one-off drama, running the risk of throwing a trivialising cliché at such a difficult subject.”
James Jackson, The Times

“It owes an aesthetic debt to Sex Education, with its bright colour scheme and British boarding school meets American high school kitsch. But its biggest homage is to Made in Chelsea. It is shot in that distinctive scripted reality style – what is the technical name for an earnest chat about feelings encircled by a camera in the style of a lion stalking its prey? – with a lot of slow-motion shots of toned bodies “doing PE”. Everything is engineered to create unnecessary conflict and tension, which makes it hopelessly, shamefully addictive.”
Rebecca Nicholson, The Guardian