Ten Pound Poms; The Teacher with Tourette’s

“This is not quite the Sunday night period drama that you might expect. It has a bit more bite than that. It doesn’t sugarcoat the nastier side of the experience, but it does allow the idealism to peek through. It has been a bit BBC One-ed, in the sense that it takes wide aim at the ‘issues’ then tackles them with broad brushstrokes, but this is enjoyable enough, nicely compelling, and a real education for those not familiar with the Ten Pound Poms story.”
Rebecca Nicholson, The Guardian

“The plot was busier than a cheap stair carpet. And there are five episodes to go. Some streaming platforms would have wrung a ten-part series out of part one alone. But is it any good? It’s certainly very watchable, and the subject matter is excellent — the real experience of working-class British families who were promised the sunlit uplands of a new life in Australia to help to populate the country but found things weren’t quite as advertised.”
Carol Midgley, The Times

“It’s a solidly enjoyable Sunday night drama, albeit one that feels slightly lacking. It doesn’t have the emotional pull of something like Call the Midwife, and it can feel underwritten in places. Still, it’s an interesting period of history. Plus, it’s a new drama that isn’t a hysterical thriller about a woman who discovers that her perfect life has been a lie, or a police procedural based on a real-life murder case. And for that we should be grateful.”
Anita Singh, The Telegraph

“There’s certainly enough material here for a rich, involving series. The mistake has been to try to cram all of it into the first episode. It’s a shame Ten Pound Poms hasn’t started at a steadier pace, the way Call The Midwife did — letting us get to know the central characters before plunging them into a tangled mess of storylines.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“Warren Brown is solid as a husband and father trying to be better and so is Fay Marsay as a wife who wants more. The reason for Michelle Keegan’s glamorous nurse being in Australia is convincing, the methods she uses to achieve her aims less so. The once prevalent idea of British exceptionalism – that to be born in Britain was to win the lottery of life – did not travel well and Ten Pound Poms was at pains to show how it might feel for white Brits to be subjected to the prejudices that they themselves often held.”
Neil Armstrong, The i

“Danny Brocklehurst has worked on a number of compulsively watchable British shows, from Shameless to The Stranger, and Ten Pound Poms is no exception. Lightweight, superficial, and a missed opportunity to interrogate our modern immigration concerns, Ten Pound Poms is, all the same, a burst of sun-soaked schmaltz.”
Nick Hilton, The Independent

“The programme succeeded on human interest grounds but was sorely lacking when it came to the science. Who gets Tourette’s and why? Is it genetic? It was a failure of the documentary not to provide basic information or any input by medical professionals.”
Anita Singh, The Telegraph